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Richard Phillips, Citizens for Tax JusticeMatt Gardner, Institute on Taxation and Economic PolicyKayla Kitson, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
Alexandria Robins, U.S. PIRG Education FundMichelle Surka, U.S. PIRG Education Fund
October 2016
Offshore Shell Games 2016
The Use of Offshore Tax Havens by Fortune 500 Companies
AcknowledgmentsThe authors thank Kelsey Kober and Aaron Mendelson for their hard work in collecting the data behind this report. The authors bear responsibility for any factual errors. The recommendations are those of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
The U.S. PIRG Education Fund, Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy are grateful to the Open Society Foundations for making this report possible. The views ex-pressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of our funders.
2016 Citizens for Tax Justice, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and U.S. PIRG Edu-cation Fund. Some Rights Reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribu-tion Non-Commercial No Derivatives 3.0 Unported License. To view the terms of this license, visit creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0.
U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund (U.S. PIRG Education Fund)With public debate around important issues often dominated by special interests pursuing their own narrow agendas, U.S. PIRG Education Fund offers an independent voice that works on be-half of the public interest. U.S. PIRG Education Fund, a 501 (c) (3) organization, works to protect consumers and promote good government. We investigate problems, craft solutions, educate the public, and offer Americans meaningful opportunities for civic participation. For more informa-tion about U.S. PIRG Education Fund, please visit http://www.uspirgedfund.org/.
Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP)The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) is a non-profit, non-partisan research or-ganization that works on federal, state, and local tax policy issues. ITEP’s mission is to ensure that elected officials, the media, and the general public have access to accurate, timely, and straight-forward information that allows them to understand the effects of current and proposed tax poli-cies. ITEP’s work focuses particularly on issues of tax fairness and sustainability. ITEP works directly with lawmakers, non-governmental organizations, the public, and the media to achieve these goals. For more information about ITEP, please visit www.itep.org.
Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ)Citizens for Tax Justice, founded in 1979, is a public interest research and advocacy organization focus-ing on federal, state and local tax policies and their impact upon our nation. CTJ’s mission is to give ordinary people a greater voice in the development of tax laws. Against the armies of special inter-est lobbyists for corporations and the wealthy, CTJ fights for fair taxes for middle- and low-income families, requiring the wealthy to pay their fair share, closing corporate tax loopholes, and adequately funding important government services. For more information about CTJ, please visit www.ctj.org.
Cover illustration: Alec Meltzer, photos by icreative3d/Bigstock and Fyletto/BigstockDesign and layout: Alec Meltzer, meltzerdesign.net
Table of Contents
Executive Summary ..................................................................................................... 1
Introduction ................................................................................................................ 5
Most of America’s Largest Corporations Maintain Subsidiaries in Offshore Tax Havens ................................................................................................... 8
Earnings Booked Offshore for Tax Purposes by U.S. Multinationals Doubled between 2009 and 2015 ............................................................................. 12
Evidence Indicates Much of Offshore Profits are Booked to Tax Havens ....................... 14
Companies are Hiding Tax Haven Subsidiaries from Public View .................................. 18
Measures to Stop Abuse of Offshore Tax Havens ........................................................ 21
Methodology ............................................................................................................. 23
Appendix: Offshore Profits and Tax Haven Subsidiaries of Fortune 500 Companies ............................................................................................ 24
Endnotes ................................................................................................................... 52
1Executive Summary
Executive Summary
U.S.-based multinational corporations are al-lowed to play by a different set of rules than small and domestic businesses or individu-als when it comes to paying taxes. Corporate lobbyists and their congressional allies have riddled the U.S. tax code with loopholes and exceptions that enable tax attorneys and corpo-rate accountants to book U.S. earned profits to subsidiaries located in offshore tax haven coun-tries with minimal or no taxes. The most trans-parent and galling aspect of this is that often, a company’s operational presence in a tax haven may be nothing more than a mailbox. Overall, multinational corporations use tax havens to avoid an estimated $100 billion in federal in-come taxes each year.
But corporate tax avoidance is not inevitable. Congress could act tomorrow to shut down tax haven abuse by revoking laws that enable and incentivize the practice of shifting money into offshore tax havens. By failing to take action, the default is that our elected officials tacitly approve the fact that when corporations don’t pay what they owe, ordinary Americans inevi-tably must make up the difference. In other words, every dollar in taxes that corporations avoid must be balanced by higher taxes on in-dividuals, cuts to public investments and ser-vices, and increased federal debt.
This study explores how in 2015 Fortune 500 companies used tax haven subsidiaries to avoid paying taxes on much of their income. It re-veals that tax haven use is now standard prac-
tice among the Fortune 500 and that a handful of the country’s wealthiest corporations ben-efit the most from this tax avoidance scheme.
The main findings of this report are:
Most of America’s largest corporations maintain subsidiaries in offshore tax ha-vens. At least 367 companies, or 73 percent of the Fortune 500, operate one or more subsidiaries in tax haven countries.
• All told, these 367 companies maintain at least 10,366 tax haven subsidiaries.
• The 30 companies with the most money officially booked offshore for tax purposes collectively operate 2,509 tax haven subsid-iaries.
The most popular tax haven among the Fortune 500 is the Netherlands, with more than half of the Fortune 500 reporting at least one subsidiary there.
Approximately 58 percent of companies with tax haven subsidiaries have set up at least one in Bermuda or the Cayman Islands — two particularly notorious tax havens. The profits that all American multinationals — not just Fortune 500 companies — collectively claimed they earned in these two island nations according to the most recent data totaled 1,884 percent and 1,313 percent of each country’s entire yearly economic output, respectively.
2 Offshore Shell Games 2016
In fact, a 2008 Congressional Research Ser-vice report found that American multinational companies collectively reported 43 percent of their foreign earnings in five small tax haven countries: Bermuda, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Yet these countries accounted for only 4 percent of the companies’ foreign workforces and just 7 per-cent of their foreign investments. By contrast, American multinationals reported earning just 14 percent of their profits in major U.S. trad-ing partners with higher taxes — Australia, Canada, the UK, Germany, and Mexico — which accounted for 40 percent of their for-eign workforce and 34 percent of their foreign investment.
Fortune 500 companies are holding nearly $2.5 trillion in accumulated profits offshore for tax purposes. Just 30 Fortune 500 com-panies account for 66 percent or $1.65 tril-lion of these offshore profits.
Only 58 Fortune 500 companies disclose what they would expect to pay in U.S. taxes if these profits were not officially booked offshore. In total, these 58 companies would owe $212 bil-lion in additional federal taxes. Based on these 58 corporations’ public disclosures, the aver-age tax rate that they have collectively paid to foreign countries on these profits is a mere 6.2 percent, indicating that a large portion of this offshore money has been booked in tax havens. If we assume that average tax rate of 6.2 percent applies to all 298 Fortune 500 com-panies with offshore earnings, they would owe a 28.8 percent rate upon repatriation of these earnings, meaning they would col-lectively owe $717.8 billion in additional federal taxes if the money were repatriated at once. Some of the worst offenders include:
• Apple: Apple has booked $214.9 billion offshore, a sum greater than any other company’s offshore cash pile. It would owe $65.4 billion in U.S. taxes if these prof-its were not officially held offshore for tax purposes. A 2013 Senate investigation found that Apple has structured two Irish subsidiaries to be tax residents of neither the United States, where they are managed and controlled, nor Ireland, where they are incorporated. A recent ruling by the Eu-ropean Commission found that Apple used this tax haven structure in Ireland to pay a rate of just 0.005 percent on its European profits in 2014, and has required that the company pay $14.5 billion in back taxes to Ireland.
• Citigroup: The financial services compa-ny officially reports $45.2 billion offshore for tax purposes on which it would owe $12.7 billion in U.S. taxes. That implies that Citigroup currently has paid only a 7 percent tax rate on its offshore profits to foreign governments, indicating that most of the money is booked in tax havens levy-ing little to no tax. Citigroup maintains 140 subsidiaries in offshore tax havens.
• Nike: The sneaker giant officially holds $10.7 billion offshore for tax purposes on which it would owe $3.6 billion in U.S. taxes. This implies Nike pays a mere 1.4 percent tax rate to foreign governments on those offshore profits, indicating that nearly all of the money is officially held by subsidiaries in tax havens. Nike likely does this by licensing several trademarks for its products to three subsidiaries in Bermuda and then essentially charging itself royal-ties to use those trademarks. The shoe company, which operates 931 retail stores throughout the world, does not operate
3Executive Summary
one in Bermuda and one of the largest de-partment stores in Bermuda, A.S. Cooper and Sons, does not list Nike as a brand that it offers.
Some companies that report a significant amount of money offshore maintain hun-dreds of subsidiaries in tax havens, includ-ing the following:
• Pfizer, the world’s largest drug maker, op-erates 181 subsidiaries in tax havens and holds $193.6 billion in profits offshore for tax purposes, the second highest among the Fortune 500. Pfizer recently attempted the acquisition of a smaller foreign competi-tor so it could reincorporate on paper as a “foreign company.” Pulling this off would have allowed the company a tax-free way to avoid $40 billion in taxes on its offshore earnings, but fortunately the Treasury De-partment issued new anti-inversion regu-lations that stopped the deal from taking place.
• PepsiCo maintains 135 subsidiaries in off-shore tax havens. The soft drink maker re-ports holding $40.2 billion offshore for tax purposes, though it does not disclose what its estimated tax bill would be if it didn’t book those profits offshore.
• Goldman Sachs reports having 987 subsid-iaries in offshore tax havens, 537 of which are in the Cayman Islands despite not op-erating a single legitimate office in that country, according to its own website. The group officially holds $28.6 billion offshore.
The proliferation of tax haven abuse is ex-acerbated by lax reporting laws that allow corporations to dictate how, when, and where they disclose foreign subsidiaries, al-
lowing them to continue to take advantage of tax loopholes without attracting govern-mental or public scrutiny.
Consider:
• A Citizens for Tax Justice analysis of 27 companies that disclose subsidiary data to both the Securities and Exchange Com-mission (SEC) and the Federal Reserve revealed that weak SEC disclosure rules allowed these companies to omit 85 per-cent of their subsidiaries on average. If this rate of omission held true for the entire Fortune 500, the number of tax haven subsidiaries in reality could be nearly 55,000, rather than the 10,366 that are be-ing publicly disclosed now.
• Walmart reported operating zero tax ha-ven subsidiaries in 2015 and for the past decade to the SEC. Despite this, a recent report released by Americans for Tax Fair-ness revealed that the company operates as many as 75 tax haven subsidiaries (us-ing this report’s list of tax haven countries). Over the past decade, Walmart’s offshore profit has grown from $8.7 billion in 2006 to $26.1 billion in 2015.
• Google reported operating 25 subsidiar-ies in tax havens in 2009, but in 2010 only reported two tax haven subsidies, both in Ireland. In its latest 10-K the company re-ports one tax haven subsidiary in Ireland. This could lead investors and researchers alike to think that Google either shut down many of its tax haven subsidiaries or con-solidated them into one. In reality how-ever, an academic analysis found that as of 2012, despite no longer publicly disclosing them, all of the newly unlisted tax haven subsidiaries were still operating. During
4 Offshore Shell Games 2016
this period, Google increased the amount of earnings it reported offshore from $12.3 billion to $58.3 billion. This combination of ceasing disclosures for tax haven sub-sidiaries and simultaneously increasing reported offshore earnings allows the cor-poration to create an illusion of legitimate international business while still being able to book profits to low- or no-tax countries.
Congress can and should take action to prevent corporations from using offshore
tax havens, which in turn would restore ba-sic fairness to the tax system, fund valuable public programs, possibly reduce annual deficits, and ultimately improve the func-tioning of markets.
There are clear policy solutions that law-makers can enact to crack down on tax ha-ven abuse. They should end incentives for companies to shift profits offshore, close the most egregious offshore loopholes and in-crease transparency.
5Introduction
Introduction
Rather than continuing to prosper under a veil of secrecy, tax havens and multinational cor-porations are beginning to feel the pressure as governments across the world crack down on international tax avoidance. For years, one report after another has revealed how many of the world’s wealthiest companies manage to use tax havens to pay little to nothing in taxes on a substantial portion of their income. Perhaps the biggest outrage to date is the recent finding by the European Commission that Apple holds as much as $115 billion in earnings in Ireland virtually tax-free, thanks to a scheme that al-lowed the corporation to keep billions in prof-its in a subsidiary that didn’t pay taxes to any country.1 The unfortunate reality, however, is that Apple is far from alone is its offshore tax avoidance.
A symbol of the excesses of the world of corpo-rate tax havens is the Ugland house, a modest five-story office building in the Cayman Islands that serves as the registered address for 18,857 companies.2 Simply by registering subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands, U.S. companies can use le-gal accounting gimmicks to make much of their U.S.-earned profits appear to be earned in the Caymans and thus pay no taxes on those profits.
U.S. law does not even require that subsidiaries have any physical presence in the Caymans beyond a post office box. In fact, about half of the subsid-iaries registered at the infamous Ugland house have their billing address in the U.S., even while they are officially registered in the Caymans.3 This unabashedly false corporate “presence” is one of the hallmarks of a tax haven subsidiary.
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6 Offshore Shell Games 2016
How Companies Avoid Taxes Companies can avoid paying taxes by booking profits to a tax haven because U.S. tax laws al-low them to defer paying U.S. taxes on profits that they report are earned abroad until they “repatriate” the money to the United States. Many U.S. companies game this system by using loopholes that allow them to disguise profits earned in the U.S. as “foreign” profits earned by subsidiaries in a tax haven.
Offshore accounting gimmicks by multina-tional corporations have created a disconnect between where companies locate their work-force and investments, on one hand, and where they claim to have earned profits, on the other. In its seminal 2008 report, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service found that American multinational companies collectively reported 43 percent of their foreign earnings in five small tax haven countries: Bermuda, Ire-land, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Swit-zerland. Yet these countries accounted for only 4 percent of the companies’ foreign workforces and just 7 percent of their foreign investments. By contrast, American multinationals report-ed earning just 14 percent of their profits in major U.S. trading partners with higher taxes — Australia, Canada, the UK, Germany, and Mexico — which accounted for 40 percent of their foreign workforce and 34 percent of their foreign investment.6 Reinforcing these earlier findings, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released data earlier this year showing that American multinationals collectively reported in 2012 that an implausible 59 percent of their foreign earnings were “earned” in 10 notorious tax havens (see table 4).7
Showing just how ridiculous these account-ing gimmicks can get, much if not most of the profits kept “offshore” are housed in U.S.
banks or invested in American assets, but are registered in the name of foreign subsidiaries. In such cases, American corporations benefit from the stability of the U.S. financial system while avoiding paying taxes on their profits that officially remain booked “offshore” for tax purposes.8 A Senate investigation of 27 large multinationals with substantial amounts of cash that was supposedly “trapped” offshore found that more than half of the offshore funds were already invested in U.S. banks, bonds, and other assets.9 For some companies the percentage is much higher. A Wall Street Jour-nal investigation found that 93 percent of the money Microsoft had officially booked “off-
What is a Tax Haven?
Tax havens have four identifying features.4 First, a tax haven is a jurisdiction with very low or nonexistent taxes. Second is the existence of laws that encourage financial secrecy and inhibit an effective exchange of information about taxpayers to tax and law enforcement authorities. Third is a general lack of transparency in legislative, legal or administrative practices. Fourth is the lack of a requirement that activities be “substantial,” suggesting that a jurisdiction is trying to earn modest fees by enabling tax avoidance.
This study uses a list of 50 tax haven ju-risdictions, which each appear on at least one list of tax havens compiled by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the National Bureau of Economic Research, or as part of a U.S. District Court order listing tax havens. These lists are also used in a GAO report investigating tax haven subsidiaries.5
7Introduction
A Note On Misleading Terminology “Offshore profits”: Using the term “offshore profits” without any qualification inaccu-rately describes how U.S. multinationals hold profits in tax havens. The term im-plies that these profits were earned purely through foreign business activity. In real-ity, much of these “offshore profits” are often U.S. profits that companies have disguised as foreign profits to avoid taxes. To be more accurate, this study instead de-scribes these funds as “profits booked off-shore for tax purposes.”
“Repatriation” or “bringing the money back”: Repatriation is a legal term used to describe when a U.S. company declares offshore profits as returned to the U.S. As a general description, “repatriation” wrongly implies that profits companies have booked off-shore for tax purposes are sitting offshore and missing from the U.S. economy, and that a company cannot make use of those profits in the U.S. without “bringing them back” and paying U.S. tax.
shore” was invested in U.S. assets.10 In theory, companies are barred from investing directly in their U.S. operations, paying dividends to shareholders or repurchasing stock with mon-ey they declare to be “offshore.” But even that restriction is easily evaded because companies can use the cash supposedly “trapped” offshore for those purposes by borrowing at negligible rates using their offshore holdings as implied collateral.
Average Taxpayers Pick Up the Tab for Offshore Tax DodgingCorporate tax avoidance is neither fair nor inevitable. Congress created the loopholes in our tax code that allow offshore tax avoidance and force ordinary Americans to make up the difference. The practice of shifting corporate income to tax haven subsidiaries reduces fed-eral revenue by an estimated $100 billion an-nually.11 Every dollar in taxes companies avoid by using tax havens must be balanced by higher taxes paid by other Americans, cuts to govern-ment programs, or increased federal debt.
It makes sense for profits earned by U.S. com-panies to be subject to U.S. taxation. The prof-its earned by these companies generally depend on access to America’s largest-in-the-world consumer market, a well-educated workforce trained by our school systems, strong private-property rights enforced by our court system,
and American roads and rail to bring products to market.12 Multinational companies that de-pend on America’s economic and social infra-structure are shirking their obligation to pay for that infrastructure when they shelter their profits overseas.
8 Offshore Shell Games 2016
Most of America’s Largest Corporations Maintain Subsidiaries in Offshore Tax Havens
As of 2015, 367 Fortune 500 companies — nearly three-quarters — disclose subsidiaries in offshore tax havens, indicating how perva-sive tax haven use is among large companies. All told, these 367 companies maintain at least 10,366 tax haven subsidiaries.13 The 30 com-panies with the most money held offshore collectively disclose 2,509 tax haven subsidiar-ies. Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan-Chase, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Mor-gan Stanley — all large financial institutions that together received $160 billion in taxpayer bailouts in 200814 — disclose a combined 2,342 subsidiaries in tax havens.
Companies that rank high for both the number of tax haven subsidiaries and how much profit they book offshore for tax purposes include:
• Pfizer, the world’s largest drug maker, operates 181 subsidiaries in tax havens and has $193.6 billion in profits offshore for tax purposes, the second highest among the Fortune 500. More than 41 percent of Pfizer’s sales between 2008 and 2015 were in the United States,15 but it managed to report no federal taxable income for eight years in a row. This is because Pfizer uses accounting techniques to shift the location of its taxable profits offshore. For exam-ple, the company can transfer patents for its drugs to a subsidiary in a low- or no-tax
country. Then when the U.S. branch of Pfizer sells the drug in the U.S., it “pays” its own offshore subsidiary high licensing fees that turn domestic profits into on-the-books losses and shifts profit overseas. Pfizer recently attempted a corporate “in-version” in which it would have acquired a smaller foreign competitor so it could reincorporate on paper in Ireland and no longer be an American company. Pulling this off would have allowed the company a tax-free way to avoid $40 billion in taxes on its offshore earnings, but fortunately the Treasury Department issued new an-ti-inversion regulations that stopped the deal from taking place.16
• PepsiCo maintains 135 subsidiaries in off-shore tax havens. The soft drink maker re-ports holding $40.2 billion offshore for tax purposes, though it does not disclose what its estimated tax bill would be if it didn’t keep those profits offshore.
• Goldman Sachs reports having 987 sub-sidiaries in offshore tax havens, 537 of which are in the Cayman Islands alone, de-spite not operating a single legitimate of-fice in that country, according to its own website.17 The group officially holds $28.6 billion offshore.
9Most of America’s Largest Corporations Maintain Subsidiaries in Offshore Tax Havens
CompanyNumber of Tax Haven
SubsidiariesLocation of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Goldman Sachs Group 987
Bahamas (1), Barbados (4), Bermuda (19), British Virgin Islands (6), Cayman Islands (537), Channel Islands (17), Costa Rica (1), Cyprus (2), Gibraltar (1), Hong Kong (19), Ireland (64), Isle of Man (3), Luxembourg (197), Mauritius (49), Monaco (1), Netherlands (45), Panama (1), Singapore (18), Switzerland (2)
Morgan Stanley 669Bermuda (4), Cayman Islands (280), Channel Islands (33), Cyprus (4), Gibraltar (1), Hong Kong (18), Ireland (45), Luxembourg (76), Malta (1), Mauritius (16), Netherlands (131), Singapore (58), Switzerland (2)
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. 385
Bahamas (7), Barbados (1), Bermuda (19), British Virgin Islands (9), Cayman Islands (149), Channel Islands (18), Cyprus (1), Hong Kong (17), Ireland (13), Luxembourg (61), Malta (13), Marshall Islands (3), Mauritius (33), Netherlands (12), Singapore (25), Switzerland (4)
KKR 300 Cayman Islands (249), Channel Islands (6), Hong Kong (3), Ireland (19), Luxembourg (9), Mauritius (5), Singapore (9)
Bank of New York Mellon Corp.
188Bahamas (2), Bermuda (6), Cayman Islands (69), Channel Islands (13), Hong Kong (2), Ireland (55), Luxembourg (16), Malta (1), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (18), Singapore (4), Switzerland (1)
AES 188Barbados (1), Bermuda (6), British Virgin Islands (8), Cayman Islands (77), Channel Islands (1), Costa Rica (1), Cyprus (1), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (3), Jordan (2), Luxembourg (1), Mauritius (3), Netherlands (69), Panama (8), Singapore (6)
Pfizer 181Bahamas (11), Cayman Islands (1), Channel Islands (3), Costa Rica (3), Hong Kong (7), Ireland (29), Luxembourg (42), Netherlands (65), Panama (4), Singapore (10), Switzerland (6)
Thermo Fisher Scientific 159
Barbados (3), Bermuda (4), British Virgin Islands (1), Cayman Islands (12), Channel Islands (1), Costa Rica (1), Gibraltar (2), Hong Kong (18), Ireland (8), Luxembourg (24), Malta (6), Netherlands (54), Singapore (10), Switzerland (15)
Citigroup 140
Aruba (1), Bahamas (21), Bahrain (1), Bermuda (6), Cayman Islands (22), Channel Islands (12), Costa Rica (7), Hong Kong (20), Ireland (11), Luxembourg (8), Mauritius (5), Monaco (1), Netherlands (3), Panama (3), Singapore (12), Switzerland (6), Turks and Caicos (1)
PepsiCo 135
Barbados (1), Bermuda (15), Cayman Islands (6), Costa Rica (2), Cyprus (13), Gibraltar (2), Hong Kong (10), Ireland (9), Jordan (1), Liechtenstein (1), Luxembourg (24), Mauritius (2), Netherlands (32), Netherlands Antilles (8), Panama (1), Singapore (2), Switzerland (6)
Merck 125 Bermuda (11), Costa Rica (2), Cyprus (3), Hong Kong (3), Ireland (25), Lebanon (1), Luxembourg (1), Netherlands (44), Panama (5), Singapore (7), Switzerland (23)
Marsh & McLennan 123
Bahamas (1), Bahrain (1), Barbados (5), Bermuda (20), Cayman Islands (2), Channel Islands (3), Cyprus (2), Hong Kong (12), Ireland (17), Isle of Man (4), Jordan (1), Liechtenstein (1), Luxembourg (13), Macau (1), Malta (2), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (14), Panama (2), Singapore (12), Switzerland (9)
Table 1: Top 20 Companies with the Most Tax Haven Subsidiaries
10 Offshore Shell Games 2016
CompanyNumber of Tax Haven
SubsidiariesLocation of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Bank of America Corp. 109
Bahamas (2), Bermuda (4), Cayman Islands (18), Channel Islands (13), Costa Rica (1), Gibraltar (4), Hong Kong (3), Ireland (8), Luxembourg (13), Mauritius (6), Netherlands (25), Netherlands Antilles (1), Singapore (8), Switzerland (3)
Occidental Petroleum 109 Bermuda (62), Cayman Islands (9), Hong Kong (1), Liberia (1), Malta (1),
Netherlands (4), Panama (1), Singapore (2), St. Kitts and Nevis (26), Switzerland (2)
Zimmer Biomet Holdings 102
Bermuda (2), Cayman Islands (4), Channel Islands (2), Costa Rica (2), Gibraltar (4), Hong Kong (20), Ireland (6), Luxembourg (14), Netherlands (28), Singapore (2), Switzerland (18)
Stanley Black & Decker 99
British Virgin Islands (4), Cayman Islands (7), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (13), Ireland (22), Liechtenstein (1), Luxembourg (16), Macau (1), Netherlands (14), Panama (4), Singapore (10), Switzerland (6)
Hewlett-Packard 95
Bahrain (2), Bermuda (6), British Virgin Islands (2), Cayman Islands (7), Costa Rica (2), Hong Kong (4), Ireland (9), Luxembourg (3), Netherlands (50), Panama (2), Singapore (5), Switzerland (3)
Abbott Laboratories 94
Bahamas (2), Barbados (1), Bermuda (6), British Virgin Islands (1), Cayman Islands (4), Costa Rica (3), Cyprus (2), Gibraltar (3), Hong Kong (4), Ireland (12), Lebanon (1), Luxembourg (9), Malta (2), Netherlands (21), Panama (13), Singapore (4), Switzerland (5), U.S. Virgin Islands (1)
Marriott International 93
Anguilla (1), Aruba (1), Bahamas (2), Bahrain (1), Barbados (1), Bermuda (6), British Virgin Islands (8), Cayman Islands (10), Channel Islands (2), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (7), Ireland (3), Jordan (3), Lebanon (1), Luxembourg (6), Maldives (1), Malta (1), Netherlands (14), Netherlands Antilles (7), Panama (2), Singapore (3), St. Kitts and Nevis (2), St. Lucia (1), Switzerland (7), Turks and Caicos (1), U.S. Virgin Islands (1)
PNC Financial Services Group 92
Bermuda (10), Cayman Islands (39), Channel Islands (8), Cyprus (1), Hong Kong (5), Ireland (8), Isle of Man (3), Luxembourg (8), Netherlands (5), Singapore (4), Switzerland (1)
Total 4,373
Table 1 (continued): Top 20 Companies with the Most Tax Haven Subsidiaries
11Most of America’s Largest Corporations Maintain Subsidiaries in Offshore Tax Havens
Figure 1: Percent of Fortune 500 Companies with 2015 Subsidiaries in 20 Top Tax Havens
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
55%
Which Tax Havens do the Fortune 500 Turn To?While small island nations such as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands have become syn-onymous with tax havens, many Fortune 500 companies are turning to countries outside the Caribbean for their tax avoidance schemes. In fact, with more than 50 percent of the Fortune 500 companies operating at least one subsid-iary there, the Netherlands appears to be the most frequently used tax haven country by ma-
jor U.S. companies. It is followed by Singapore and Hong Kong, which are critical tax havens in pursuing business ventures in Asia. The next most popular havens are the three other Eu-ropean tax havens, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Ireland.
While they are no longer the dominant tax ha-vens when it comes to corporate tax avoidance, the Cayman Islands or Bermuda are used by 58 percent of Fortune 500 companies for at least one tax haven subsidiary.
12 Offshore Shell Games 2016
Earnings Booked Offshore for Tax Purposes by U.S. Multinationals Doubled between 2009 and 2015
In recent years, U.S. multinational companies have sharply increased the amount of money that they book to foreign subsidiaries. According to our latest estimate, by 2015 companies held $2.49 trillion offshore, more than double the off-shore income reported by companies in 2009.18
For many companies, increasing profits held offshore does not mean building factories abroad, selling more products to foreign cus-tomers, or doing any additional real business activity in other countries. Instead, many com-panies use accounting tricks to disguise their profits as “foreign,” and book them to a subsid-iary in a tax haven to avoid taxes.
The 298 Fortune 500 Companies that re-port offshore profits collectively hold near-
ly $2.5 trillion offshore, with 30 companies accounting for 66 percent of the total.
The 298 Fortune 500 companies that report holding offshore cash had collectively accumu-lated more than $2.49 trillion that they declare to be “permanently reinvested” abroad. (This designation allows them to avoid counting the taxes they have “deferred” as a future cost in their financial reports to shareholders.) While 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies report having income offshore, some companies shift profits offshore far more aggressively than oth-ers. The 30 companies with the most money offshore account for more than $1.65 trillion of the total. In other words, just 30 Fortune 500 companies account for 66 percent of the offshore cash.
13Earnings Booked Offshore for Tax Purposes by U.S. Multinationals Doubled between 2009 and 2015
Table 2: Top 30 Companies with the Most Money Held Offshore
CompanyAmount Held
Offshore ($ millions)
Number of Tax Haven
Subsidiaries
Apple 214,900 3
Pfizer 193,587 181
Microsoft 124,000 5
General Electric 104,000 20
International Business Machines 68,100 16
Merck 59,200 125
Google 58,300 1
Cisco Systems 58,000 56
Johnson & Johnson 58,000 62
Exxon Mobil 51,000 35
Procter & Gamble 49,000 35
Hewlett-Packard 47,200 95
Chevron 45,400 8
Citigroup 45,200 140
Oracle 42,600 5
CompanyAmount Held
Offshore ($ millions)
Number of Tax Haven
Subsidiaries
PepsiCo 40,200 135
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. 34,600 385
Amgen 32,600 9
Coca-Cola 31,900 15
United Technologies 29,000 31
Qualcomm 28,800 3
Goldman Sachs Group 28,550 987
Gilead Sciences 28,500 12
Intel 26,900 13
Eli Lilly 26,500 33
Walmart 26,100
AbbVie Inc 25,000 38
Bristol-Myers Squibb 25,000 23
Danaher 23,500 31
Philip Morris International
23,000 7
Total: 1,648,637 2,509
14 Offshore Shell Games 2016
Evidence Indicates Much of Offshore Profits are Booked to Tax Havens
Companies are not required to disclose pub-licly how much they tell the IRS they’ve earned in specific foreign countries. Still, some com-panies provide enough information in their an-nual SEC filings to reveal that for tax purposes, these companies characterize much of their offshore cash as sitting in tax havens.
Only 58 Fortune 500 companies disclose what they would pay in taxes if they did not book their profits offshore.
In theory, companies are required to disclose how much they would owe in taxes on their off-shore profits in their annual 10-K filings to the SEC and shareholders. But a major loophole al-lows them to avoid such disclosure if the compa-ny claims that it is “not practicable” to calculate the tax.19 Considering that only 58 of the 298 Fortune 500 companies with offshore earnings do disclose how much they would pay in taxes, that means that this loophole allows 80 percent of these companies to get out of disclosing how much they would owe. The 58 companies that publicly disclose the tax calculations report that they would owe $212 billion in additional fed-eral taxes, a tax rate of 28.8 percent.
The U.S. tax code allows a credit for taxes paid to foreign governments when profits held off-shore are declared in the U.S. and become tax-able here. While the U.S. corporate tax rate is
35 percent, the average tax rate that these 58 companies have paid to foreign governments on the profits they’ve booked offshore appears to be a mere 6.2 percent. 20 That in turn indi-cates that the bulk of their offshore cash has been booked in tax havens that levy little or no corporate tax. We can calculate this low rate by subtracting the rate they say they would owe upon repatriation (i.e. the 28.8 percent rate on average) from the 35 percent statutory tax rate. If the additional 28.8 percent tax rate that the 58 disclosing companies say they would owe is applied to the offshore cash held by the non-disclosing companies, then the Fortune 500 companies as a group would owe an additional $717.8 billion in federal taxes.
Examples of large companies paying very low foreign tax rates on offshore cash include:
• Apple: Apple has booked $214.9 billion offshore — more than any other company. It would owe $65.4 billion in U.S. taxes if these profits were not officially held off-shore for tax purposes. This means that Apple has paid a miniscule 4.6 percent tax rate on its offshore profits. That confirms that Apple has been getting away with pay-ing almost nothing in taxes on the huge amount of profits it has booked in Ireland.
15Evidence Indicates Much of Offshore Profits are Booked to Tax Havens
Table 3: 28 Companies disclose paying less than a 10 percent tax rate on profits booked offshore, implying that most of those profits are in tax havens.
CompanyAmount Held
Offshore ($ millions)
Estimated Deferred Tax Bill
($ millions)
Implied Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Apple 214,900 65,388 4.6% 3
Microsoft 124,000 39,300 3.3% 5
Citigroup 45,200 12,700 6.9% 140
Oracle 42,600 13,300 3.8% 5
Amgen 32,600 11,400 0.0% 9
Qualcomm 28,800 10,200 0.0% 3
Gilead Sciences 28,500 9,700 1.0% 12
Bank of America Corp. 18,000 5,000 7.2% 109
Western Digital 12,000 4,000 1.7% 49
Nike 10,700 3,600 1.4% 55
American Express 9,900 3,000 4.7% 32
Baxter International 8,500 2,400 6.8% 16
Baxalta 6,400 2,200 0.6% 6
Biogen 6,000 1,750 5.8% 14
Lam Research 4,300 1,200 7.1% 21
Symantec 3,800 1,100 6.1% 4
Hanesbrands 2,699 796 5.5% 45
Wells Fargo 2,000 557 7.2% 52
FMC Technologies 1,949 717 0.0% 11
Owens Corning 1,600 581 0.0% 17
Spirit AeroSystems Holdings 310 100 2.7% 5
Clorox 216 56 9.1% 11
Leucadia National 205 59 6.2% 2
PNC Financial Services Group 110 34 4.1% 92
Netflix 65 23 0.1% 2
AK Steel Holding 38 13 0.0% 1
Dick's Sporting Goods 32 11 0.5% 4
Veritiv 31 10 2.2% 4
Totals 605,454 189,195 3.8% 729
16 Offshore Shell Games 2016
• Citigroup: The financial services compa-ny officially reports $45.2 billion offshore for tax purposes on which it would owe $12.7 billion in U.S. taxes. That implies that Citigroup currently has paid only a 7 percent tax rate on its offshore profits to foreign governments, indicating that most of the money is booked in tax havens levy-ing little to no tax. 21 Citigroup maintains 140 subsidiaries in offshore tax havens.
• Nike: The sneaker giant reports $10.7 bil-lion in accumulated offshore profits, on which it would owe $3.6 billion in U.S. taxes. That implies Nike has paid a mere 1.4 percent tax rate to foreign governments on those offshore profits. Again, this indi-cates that nearly all of the offshore money is held by subsidiaries in tax havens. Nike is likely able to engage in such tax avoidance in part by transferring the ownership of
Table 4: Profits Reported Collectively by American Multinational Corporations in 2012 to 10 Notorious Tax Havens
Tax Haven CountryReported Profits of U.S.-Controlled Subsidiaries
(dollars in billions)
Gross Domestic Product (billion dollars of GDP)
Subsidiary profits as % of GDP
Bermuda $104 $6 1884%
Cayman Islands 46 3 1313%
British Virgin Islands 7 1 746%
Bahamas 23 8 282%
Luxembourg 68 56 121%
Ireland 135 225 60%
Netherlands 165 829 20%
Singapore 23 290 8%
Switzerland 44 665 7%
Hong Kong 10 263 4%
Total: $625 $2,346 Avg: 27%
Total for all other countries in IRS Data $428 $45,616 Avg: 1%
Source for profit and tax figures: IRS, Statistics of Income Division, April 2016Source for GDP Figures: World Bank http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD, United Nations Statistics Division http://unstats.un.org/
17Evidence Indicates Much of Offshore Profits are Booked to Tax Havens
Nike trademarks for some of its products to three subsidiaries in Bermuda. Humor-ously, Nike’s tax haven subsidiaries bear the names of Nike shoes such as “Nike Air Ace” and “Nike Huarache.”22 The shoe company, which operates 931 retail stores throughout the world, does not operate one in Bermuda and one of the largest de-partment stores in Bermuda, A.S. Cooper and Sons, does not list Nike as a brand that it offers.23
The latest IRS data show that in 2012, more than half of the foreign profits reported by all U.S. multinationals were booked in tax havens for tax purposes.
In the aggregate, IRS data show that in 2012, American multinationals collectively reported to the IRS that they earned $625 billion in 10 well-known tax havens. That’s more than half (59 percent) of the total profits that American companies reported earning abroad that year. For the five tax havens where American com-panies booked the most profits, those reported earnings were greater than the size of those countries’ entire economies, as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This illus-trates the tenuous relationship between where American multinationals actually do business and where they report that they made their profits for tax purposes.
Approximately 58 percent of companies with tax haven subsidiaries have registered at least one subsidiary in Bermuda or the Cayman Is-lands — the two tax havens where profits from American multinationals accounted for the largest percentage of the two countries’ GDP.
Maximizing the benefit of offshore tax havens by reincorporating as a “foreign” company: a new wave of corporate “inversions.” To avoid taxes, some American companies have gone so far as to change the address of their corpo-rate headquarters on paper by merging with a for-eign company, so they can reincorporate in a for-eign country, in a maneuver called an ‘inversion.”
24 Inversions increase the reward for exploiting off-shore loopholes. In theory, an American company must pay U.S. tax on profits it claims were made offshore if it wants to officially bring the money back to the U.S. to pay out dividends to sharehold-ers or make certain U.S. investments. However, an inversion scheme stands reality on its head. Once a corporation reconfigures itself as “foreign,” the profits it claims were earned for tax purposes out-side the U.S. become exempt from U.S. tax.
Even though a “foreign” corporation still is sup-posed to pay U.S. tax on profits it earns in the U.S., corporate inversions are often followed by “earn-ings-stripping.” This is a scheme in which a corpo-ration loads the American part of the company with debt owed to the foreign part of the company. The interest payments on the debt are tax-deductible, thus reducing taxable American profits. The foreign company to which the U.S. profits are shifted will be set up in a tax haven to avoid foreign taxes as well.25 Fortunately, the U.S. Treasury has taken some ac-tion to stop the most egregious earnings stripping and inversion abuses, but many companies are still finding ways to exploit these loopholes to avoid taxes.26 More action is needed to close the inver-sion loophole once and for all.
18 Offshore Shell Games 2016
Companies are Hiding Tax Haven Subsidiaries from Public View
The subsidiary data in this report relies largely on publicly available data reported by compa-nies in their Securities and Exchange Com-mission (SEC) filings. The critical problem is that the SEC only requires that companies report all “significant” subsidiaries, based on multiple measures of a subsidiary’s share of the company’s total assets.27 By only requiring significant rather than all subsidiaries, this al-lows companies to get away with not disclosing many of their offshore subsidiaries and creates the potential for gaming because avoiding dis-closure simply requires splitting a significant subsidiary into several smaller subsidiaries. In addition, a recent academic study found that the penalties for not disclosing subsidiaries are so light that companies might decide that dis-closure isn’t worth the bad publicity it could engender. The researchers postulate that in-creased media attention on offshore tax dodg-ing and/or IRS scrutiny could be a reason why some companies have stopped disclosing all of their offshore subsidiaries.28
Examples of large companies that are engaged in substantial tax avoidance while disclosing few or even zero tax haven subsidiaries include:
• Walmart reported operating zero tax haven subsidiaries in 2015 and for the past decade. Despite this, a report released by Americans for Tax Fairness revealed that the company operated as many as 75 tax haven subsid-
iaries in 2014 (using this report’s list of tax haven countries) that were not included in its SEC filings. 29 Over the past decade, Walmart’s offshore profit has grown from $8.7 billion in 2006 to $26.1 billion in 2015.
• Google reported operating 25 subsidiar-ies in tax havens in 2009, but in 2010 only reported two tax haven subsidies, both in Ireland. In its latest 10-K the company only reports one tax haven subsidiary in Ireland. This could lead investors and researchers alike to think that Google either shut down many of its tax haven subsidiaries or con-solidated them into one. In reality however, an academic analysis found that as of 2012, despite no longer publicly disclosing them, all of the newly unlisted tax haven subsidiar-ies were still operating. During this period, Google increased the amount of earnings it reported offshore from $12.3 billion to $58.3 billion.30 Google likely uses account-ing techniques like the infamous “double Irish” and the “Dutch sandwich,” according to a Bloomberg investigation. Google likely shifts profits through Ireland and the Neth-erlands to Bermuda, shrinking its tax bill by approximately $2 billion a year.31
One significant indication that there is a sub-stantial gap between companies’ number of subsidiaries and the number they report to the SEC is the substantially larger number of
19Companies are Hiding Tax Haven Subsidiaries from Public View
Table 5: Comparison of Subsidiary Data Presented to the Federal Reserve and the SEC for 27 Financial Institutions
CompanyUnique Institutions Reported to Federal
Reserve
Subsidiaries Reported
to SEC
Tax Haven Subsidiaries Reported to
Federal Reserve
Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Reported to SEC
Ally Financial 74 10 4 0
American Express 369 136 32 24
Bank of America 1,487 98 109 22
Bank of New York Mellon 828 49 188 6
BB&T 172 113 2 3
Capital One Financial 190 2 0 0
Charles Schwab 48 4 5 0
CIT Group 207 205 53 55
Citigroup 1,117 116 140 21
Citizens Financial Group 41 36 0 0
Discover Financial Services 36 25 2 2
Fifth Third Bancorp 937 50 2 4
First American 104 22 4 0
Goldman Sachs Group 3,057 76 987 17
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. 2,051 43 385 4
KeyCorp 97 1 2 0
Macy's 56 24 3 2
Morgan Stanley 2,763 788 669 189
Nordstrom 29 3 1 0
Northern Trust 63 73 29 32
PNC Financial Services Group 807 15 92 0
Raymond James Financial 117 121 4 3
Regions Financial 29 48 0 0
State Street 209 36 64 10
SunTrust Banks 73 16 1 0
U.S. Bancorp 95 97 6 11
Wells Fargo 1,333 72 52 5
TOTALS 16,389 2,279 2,836 410
Source: CTJ analysis of companies’ 10-K and Federal Reserve reports
20 Offshore Shell Games 2016
subsidiaries that 27 Fortune 500 companies report to the Federal Reserve versus the SEC. According to a CTJ analysis of SEC and Fed-eral Reserve data, these 27 companies reported 16,389 total subsidiaries and 2,836 tax haven subsidiaries to the Federal Reserve, while only reporting 2,279 total subsidiaries and only 410 tax haven subsidiaries to the SEC.
In other words, these companies are allowed to omit more than 85 percent of the subsidiaries they reported to the Federal Reserve in their SEC filings. Taking this analysis one step further, if we were to assume this ratio of omission applied to all Fortune 500 companies in this study, then the to-tal number of tax haven subsidiaries that Fortune 500 companies operate could be nearly 55,000.32
21Measures to Stop Abuse of Offshore Tax Havens
Measures to Stop Abuse of Offshore Tax Havens
Strong action to prevent corporations from using offshore tax havens will not only restore basic fairness to the tax system, but will also al-leviate pressure on America’s budget deficit and improve the functioning of markets. Markets work best when companies thrive based on their innovation or productivity, rather than the ag-gressiveness of their tax accounting schemes.
Policymakers should reform the corporate tax code to end the incentives that encourage companies to use tax havens, close the most egregious loopholes, and increase transparency so companies can’t use layers of shell companies to shrink their tax bills.
End incentives to shift profits and jobs offshore.
• The most comprehensive solution to ending tax haven abuse would be to stop permitting U.S. multinational corporations to indefi-nitely defer paying U.S. taxes on profits they attribute to their foreign subsidiaries. In other words, companies should pay taxes on their foreign income at the same rate and time that they pay them on their domestic income. Pay-ing U.S. taxes on this overseas income would not constitute “double taxation” because the companies already subtract any foreign taxes they’ve paid from their U.S. tax bill, and that would not change. Ending “deferral” could raise up to $1.3 trillion over ten years, accord-ing to the U.S. Treasury Department.33
• The best way to deal with existing profits being held offshore would be to tax them
through a deemed repatriation at the full 35 percent rate (minus foreign tax-es paid), which we estimate would raise $717.8 billion. President Obama has pro-posed a much lower tax rate of 14 per-cent, which would allow large multina-tional corporations to avoid around $500 billion in taxes that they owe. Former Republican Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp proposed a rate of only 8.75 percent, which would allow large mul-tinational corporations to avoid around $550 billion in taxes that they owe. At a time of fiscal austerity, there is no rea-son that companies should get hundreds of billions in tax benefits to reward them for booking their income offshore.
Increase transparency.
• Require full and honest reporting to expose tax haven abuses. To accomplish this, multi-national corporations should be required to publicly disclose critical financial informa-tion on a country-by-country basis (informa-tion such as profit, income tax paid, number of employees, assets, etc) so that companies cannot manipulate their income and ac-tivities to avoid taxation in the countries in which they do business. One way that this could be accomplished without legislation would be for the SEC or the Financial Ac-counting Standards Board (FASB) to require that this information be disclosed in compa-nies’ annual 10-K filings to the agency.34
22 Offshore Shell Games 2016
Close the most egregious offshore loopholes.
Short of ending deferral, policy makers can take some basic common-sense steps to curtail some of the most obvious and brazen ways that some companies abuse offshore tax havens.
• Cooperate with the OECD and its member countries to implement the recommenda-tions of the group’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project, which represents a modest first step toward international coor-dination to end corporate tax avoidance.35
• Close the inversion loophole by treating an en-tity that results from a U.S.-foreign merger as an American corporation if the majority (as op-posed to 80 percent) of voting stock is held by shareholders of the former American corpora-tion. These companies should also be treated as U.S. companies if they are managed and con-trolled in the U.S. and have significant business activities in the U.S.36 Two additional strategies to combat inversions would be to enact an exit tax on any expatriating company or to crack down on the practice of earnings stripping.37
• Reform the so-called “check-the-box” rules to stop multinational companies from manipulating how they define their status to minimize their taxes. Right now, companies can make inconsistent claims to maximize their tax advantages, telling one country that a subsidiary is a corporation while telling another country the same en-tity is a partnership or some other form.
• Stop companies from shifting intellectual property (e.g. patents, trademarks, licenses) to shell companies in tax haven countries and then paying inflated fees to use them. This common practice allows companies to le-gally book profits that were earned in the
U.S. to the tax haven subsidiary owning the patent. Limited reforms proposed by Presi-dent Obama could save taxpayers $21.3 bil-lion over ten years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT).38
Reject the creation of new loopholes.
When some lawmakers say they want to fix our broken international tax system, what they re-ally mean is that they want to fix it to be more in favor of the multinational corporations. To prevent the tax avoidance problem from be-coming even worse, lawmakers should:
• Reject a “territorial” tax system. Tax haven abuse would be worse under a system in which companies could shift profits to tax haven countries, pay minimal or no tax under those countries’ tax laws, and then freely use the profits in the United States without paying any U.S. taxes. The JCT estimates that switch-ing to a territorial tax system could add almost $300 billion to the deficit over ten years.39
• Reject the creation of a so-called “innova-tion” or “patent box.” Some lawmakers are trying to create a new loophole in the code by giving companies a preferential tax rate on income earned from patents, trademarks, and other “intellectual property” which is easy to assign to offshore subsidiaries. Such a policy would be an unjustified and ineffective give-away to multinational U.S. corporations.40
• Reject corporate integration proposals, which seek to lower taxes on capital by cut-ting corporate or capital gains and dividends taxes. 41 Such proposals would lead to sub-stantial swaths of income going entirely un-taxed, ignore the entity-level advantages that corporations receive and would undermine a critical source of progressive revenue.
23Methodology
Methodology
The list of 50 tax havens used is based on lists compiled by three sources using similar char-acteristics to define tax havens. These sources were the Organisation for Economic Co-oper-ation and Development (OECD), the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a U.S. Dis-trict Court order. This court order gave the IRS the authority to issue a “John Doe” sum-mons, which included a list of tax havens and financial privacy jurisdictions.
The companies surveyed make up the 2016 Fortune 500, a list of which can be found here: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/.
To figure out how many subsidiaries each com-pany had in the 50 known tax havens, we looked at “Exhibit 21” of each company’s most recent 10-K report, which is filed annually with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Exhibit 21 lists every reported subsidiary of the company and the country in which it is regis-tered. We used the SEC’s EDGAR database to find the 10-K filings. 367 of the Fortune companies disclose offshore subsidiaries, but it is possible that many of the remaining 132 companies do in fact have offshore tax haven subsidiaries but declined to disclose them pub-
licly. For those companies who also disclosed subsidiary data to the Federal Reserve (which is publicly available in their online National Information Center), we used this more com-prehensive subsidiary data in the report.
We also used 10-K reports to find the amount of money each company reported it kept off-shore in 2015. This information is typically found in the tax footnote of the 10-K. The companies disclose this information as the amount they keep “permanently reinvested” abroad.
As explained in this report, 58 of the compa-nies surveyed disclosed what their estimated tax bill would be if they repatriated the money they kept offshore. This information is also found in the tax footnote. To calculate the tax rate these companies paid abroad in 2015, we first divided the estimated tax bill by the total amount kept offshore. That number equals the U.S. tax rate the company would pay if they repatriated that foreign cash. Since compa-nies receive dollar-for-dollar credits for taxes paid to foreign governments, the tax rate paid abroad is simply the difference between 35% — the U.S. statutory corporate tax rate — and the tax rate paid upon repatriation.
24 Offshore Shell Games 2016
Appendix: Offshore Profits and Tax Haven Subsidiaries of Fortune 500 Companies
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
3M 14 Hong Kong (1), Luxembourg (4), Netherlands (1), Panama (1), Singapore (4), Switzerland (3)
12,000 Minnesota
Abbott Laboratories
94 Bahamas (2), Barbados (1), Bermuda (6), British Virgin Islands (1), Cayman Islands (4), Costa Rica (3), Cyprus
(2), Gibraltar (3), Hong Kong (4), Ireland (12), Lebanon (1), Luxembourg (9), Malta (2),
Netherlands (21), Panama (13), Singapore (4), Switzerland (5), U.S. Virgin Islands (1)
22,400 Illinois
AbbVie Inc 38 Bahamas (1), Bermuda (3), Cayman Islands (1), Channel
Islands (3), Cyprus (1), Gibraltar (2), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (6), Luxembourg (5), Netherlands (9), Panama (1), Singapore (2), Switzerland (3)
25,000 Illinois
ABM Industries 1 Bermuda (1) New York
Advance Auto Parts 114 Virginia
AECOM Technology 2 Luxembourg (1), Netherlands (1) 1,341 California
AES 188 Barbados (1), Bermuda (6), British Virgin Islands (8),
Cayman Islands (77), Channel Islands (1), Costa Rica (1),
Cyprus (1), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (3), Jordan (2), Luxembourg (1), Mauritius
(3), Netherlands (69), Panama (8), Singapore (6)
Virginia
Aetna 10 Bermuda (4), Cayman Islands (1), Hong Kong (2), Ireland (1), Singapore (2)
Connecticut
25Appendix: Offshore Profits and Tax Haven Subsidiaries of Fortune 500 Companies
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
AGCO 17 Hong Kong (1), Ireland (2), Luxembourg (1),
Netherlands (10), Singapore (1), Switzerland (2)
2,300 Georgia
Air Products & Chemicals
13 Bahrain (1), Bermuda (1), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (1),
Netherlands (5), Panama (1), Singapore (2), Switzerland (1)
6,361 10% 1,593 Pennsylvania
Airgas 2 Netherlands (2) 97 Pennsylvania
AK Steel Holding 1 Netherlands (1) 38 0% 13 Ohio
Alcoa 1 Luxembourg (1) 4,000 New York
Alliance Data Systems
41 Bermuda (3), Hong Kong (4), Ireland (3), Luxembourg (3), Netherlands (25), Singapore
(1), Switzerland (2)
125 Texas
Allstate 1 Barbados (1) Illinois
Ally Financial 4 Bermuda (1), Netherlands (2), Switzerland (1)
Michigan
Amazon.com 2 Luxembourg (2) 1,500 Washington
American Airlines Group
3 Bermuda (2), St. Lucia (1) Texas
American Express 32 Bahrain (1), British Virgin Islands (1), Cayman Islands (1), Channel
Islands (10), Hong Kong (3), Luxembourg (4), Netherlands (7), Netherlands Antilles (1),
Singapore (2), Switzerland (2)
9,900 5% 3,000 New York
American Financial Group
3 Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (1), Ireland (1)
Ohio
American International Group
18 Bahrain (1), Bermuda (4), Cyprus (1), Hong Kong (2), Ireland (2), Lebanon (1),
Liechtenstein (1), Panama (2), Singapore (3), Switzerland (1)
1,800 New York
Ameriprise Financial
18 Channel Islands (7), Hong Kong (1), Luxembourg (2), Malta (1), Singapore (3), Switzerland (4)
272 12% 63 Minnesota
AmerisourceBergen 413 Pennsylvania
Amgen 9 Bermuda (5), Ireland (1), Netherlands (2), Switzerland (1)
32,600 0% 11,400 California
Amphenol 21 Hong Kong (7), Ireland (1), Luxembourg (2), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (4), Samoa
(2), Singapore (4)
3,699 Connecticut
26 Offshore Shell Games 2016
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
Anadarko Petroleum
8 Barbados (1), Cayman Islands (4), Gibraltar (1), Luxembourg (2)
Texas
Anixter International
18 Barbados (1), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (3), Ireland (1),
Netherlands (9), Panama (1), Singapore (1), Switzerland (1)
647 26% 57 Illinois
Anthem 3 Ireland (3) Indiana
Apache 57 Cayman Islands (44), Luxembourg (9), Netherlands
(2), St. Lucia (1), Switzerland (1)
Texas
Apple 3 Ireland (3) 214,900 5% 65,388 California
Applied Materials 18 Cayman Islands (1), Hong Kong (2), Ireland (1), Luxembourg
(6), Netherlands (3), Singapore (3), Switzerland (2)
4,100 California
Aramark 18 Bermuda (1), British Virgin Islands (3), Cayman Islands (1),
Hong Kong (1), Ireland (10), Luxembourg (1), Netherlands (1)
Pennsylvania
Archer Daniels Midland
5 British Virgin Islands (1), Cayman Islands (1), Hong
Kong (1), Netherlands (1), Switzerland (1)
9,600 Illinois
Arrow Electronics 51 British Virgin Islands (2), Cayman Islands (4), Channel Islands (1), Hong Kong (17), Ireland (1), Luxembourg (1),
Mauritius (1), Netherlands (11), Singapore (11), Switzerland (2)
3,286 Colorado
Arthur J Gallagher & Co
42 Anguilla (1), Barbados (2), Bermuda (10), Cayman Islands
(3), Channel Islands (12), Gibraltar (2), Hong Kong (1), Isle of Man (1), Luxembourg (1), Malta (2), Mauritius (1), Singapore (1), St. Kitts and Nevis (1), St. Lucia (3), St.
Vincent and Grenadines (1)
232 31% 10 Illinois
Ashland 34 Barbados (1), Bermuda (5), British Virgin Islands (1), Cyprus (1), Gibraltar (2),
Hong Kong (2), Ireland (2), Luxembourg (2), Netherlands
(11), Singapore (3), Switzerland (2), U.S. Virgin Islands (2)
1,600 Kentucky
Assurant 12 Cayman Islands (4), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (1), Isle of Man (1), Malta (1), Netherlands
(2), Turks and Caicos (2)
198 24% 21 New York
27Appendix: Offshore Profits and Tax Haven Subsidiaries of Fortune 500 Companies
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
AT&T 1 Netherlands (1) Texas
Autoliv 3 Netherlands (3) 4,100 Michigan
Automatic Data Processing
418 New Jersey
AutoNation 1 Cayman Islands (1) Florida
AutoZone 432 32% 12 Tennessee
Avery Dennison 67 British Virgin Islands (9), Channel Islands (1), Gibraltar (2), Hong Kong (8), Ireland (2),
Luxembourg (13), Mauritius (2), Netherlands (24), Singapore
(3), Switzerland (3)
1,900 California
Avis Budget Group 19 Barbados (1), Channel Islands (3), Isle of Man (3), Luxembourg
(3), Monaco (1), Netherlands (3), Singapore (1), Switzerland
(3), U.S. Virgin Islands (1)
941 New Jersey
Avnet 43 British Virgin Islands (3), Hong Kong (16), Ireland (4), Macau (1), Malta (1), Netherlands (7), Singapore (9), Switzerland (2)
3,180 Arizona
Avon Products 26 Bermuda (4), Cayman Islands (9), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (1), Luxembourg (1), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (5), Panama (2), Singapore (1), Switzerland (1)
New York
Baker Hughes 15 Bermuda (1), Luxembourg (10), Netherlands (4)
5,600 Texas
Ball 32 Barbados (1), British Virgin Islands (4), Cayman Islands (2), Hong Kong (11), Luxembourg
(6), Netherlands (5), Singapore (1), Switzerland (2)
2,022 Colorado
Bank of America Corp.
109 Bahamas (2), Bermuda (4), Cayman Islands (18), Channel
Islands (13), Costa Rica (1), Gibraltar (4), Hong Kong (3), Ireland (8), Luxembourg (13),
Mauritius (6), Netherlands (25), Netherlands Antilles (1), Singapore (8), Switzerland (3)
18,000 7% 5,000 North Carolina
Bank of New York Mellon Corp.
188 Bahamas (2), Bermuda (6), Cayman Islands (69), Channel Islands (13), Hong Kong (2),
Ireland (55), Luxembourg (16), Malta (1), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (18), Singapore
(4), Switzerland (1)
6,200 17% 1,100 New York
28 Offshore Shell Games 2016
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
Baxalta 6 Ireland (1), Netherlands (1), Singapore (1), Switzerland (3)
6,400 1% 2,200 Illinois
Baxter International 16 Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (2), Malta (2),
Netherlands (4), Singapore (2), Switzerland (4)
8,500 7% 2,400 Illinois
BB&T Corp. 3 Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (1), Turks and Caicos (1)
North Carolina
Becton Dickinson 57 Bermuda (3), British Virgin Islands (1), Cayman Islands (3),
Gibraltar (4), Hong Kong (4), Ireland (8), Luxembourg (9),
Mauritius (1), Netherlands (12), Singapore (6), Switzerland (6)
7,500 New Jersey
Berkshire Hathaway 9 Cayman Islands (1), Gibraltar (2), Luxembourg
(2), Netherlands (4)
10,400 Nebraska
Best Buy 13 Bermuda (1), Hong Kong (2), Luxembourg (1),
Mauritius (7), Netherlands (1), Turks and Caicos (1)
896 Minnesota
Biogen 14 Bermuda (1), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (1), Luxembourg (1), Netherlands (2), Singapore
(1), Switzerland (7)
6,000 6% 1,750 Massachusetts
BlackRock 44 Cayman Islands (5), Channel Islands (8), Cyprus (1), Hong Kong (4), Ireland (5), Isle of Man (3), Luxembourg (7),
Netherlands (5), Singapore (4), Switzerland (2)
4,734 New York
Boeing 2 Bermuda (1), Netherlands (1) 700 Illinois
Booz Allen Hamilton Holding
6 Ireland (1), Lebanon (1), Singapore (4)
Virginia
BorgWarner 11 Bermuda (1), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (1), Luxembourg (3), Mauritius (1), Monaco
(1), Netherlands (3)
3,300 Michigan
Boston Scientific 22 Bermuda (1), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (6),
Lebanon (2), Luxembourg (1), Netherlands (7), Singapore
(1), Switzerland (2)
8,900 Massachusetts
Bristol-Myers Squibb
23 Bermuda (1), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (6),
Lebanon (1), Luxembourg (2), Netherlands (7), Panama (1), Singapore (1), Switzerland (2)
25,000 New York
29Appendix: Offshore Profits and Tax Haven Subsidiaries of Fortune 500 Companies
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
C.H. Robinson Worldwide
11 Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (3), Ireland (1), Luxembourg (1), Netherlands (1), Singapore
(3), Switzerland (1)
Minnesota
Cameron International
56 Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (11), Hong Kong (1),
Ireland (5), Luxembourg (25), Malta (1), Netherlands (7), Singapore (4), St. Lucia (1)
8,300 Texas
Campbell Soup 6 Hong Kong (4), Luxembourg (1), Singapore (1)
770 New Jersey
Capital One Financial
1,500 Virginia
Cardinal Health 8 Bermuda (1), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (1), Luxembourg (1), Malta (1), Netherlands (1),
Singapore (1), Switzerland (1)
2,100 Ohio
CarMax 1 Bermuda (1) Virginia
Caterpillar 69 Bermuda (8), British Virgin Islands (1), Cayman Islands (3), Channel Islands (1), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (7), Ireland (3), Luxembourg (7), Netherlands (11), Panama (3), Singapore
(11), Switzerland (13)
17,000 Illinois
CBRE Group 5 Channel Islands (1), Luxembourg (3), Netherlands (1)
1,400 California
CBS 44 Bahamas (8), Bermuda (3), Cayman Islands (7), Cyprus (1), Luxembourg (6), Netherlands (13), Panama (1), Singapore
(2), Switzerland (3)
4,150 New York
Celanese 18 Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (1), Cyprus (1), Hong Kong (1), Luxembourg (3),
Netherlands (7), Singapore (4)
3,900 Texas
Celgene 32 Bermuda (5), Hong Kong (2), Ireland (2), Luxembourg (2), Netherlands (4), Singapore
(1), Switzerland (16)
9,667 New Jersey
Centene 8 Missouri
CenturyLink 17 British Virgin Islands (2), Hong Kong (5), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (6), Singapore
(2), Switzerland (1)
Louisiana
CH2M Hill 2 Luxembourg (1), Netherlands (1) 342 Colorado
Charles Schwab 5 Hong Kong (2), Ireland (1), Singapore (2)
California
30 Offshore Shell Games 2016
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
Chevron 8 Bahamas (2), Bermuda (5), Liberia (1)
45,400 California
CHS 13 Bermuda (1), Cyprus (3), Hong Kong (1), Luxembourg (3), Netherlands (1), Singapore
(2), Switzerland (2)
Minnesota
Cigna 15 Bahrain (1), Bermuda (5), Channel Islands (1), Hong Kong (4), Malta (1), Netherlands (3)
2,200 22% 290 Connecticut
Cisco Systems 56 Bahrain (1), Bermuda (6), Cayman Islands (1), Channel
Islands (1), Costa Rica (1), Cyprus (1), Hong Kong
(7), Ireland (9), Jordan (1), Luxembourg (3), Mauritius (2), Netherlands (13), Panama (1), Singapore (6), Switzerland (3)
58,000 California
Citigroup 140 Aruba (1), Bahamas (21), Bahrain (1), Bermuda
(6), Cayman Islands (22), Channel Islands (12), Costa Rica (7), Hong Kong (20),
Ireland (11), Luxembourg (8), Mauritius (5), Monaco (1),
Netherlands (3), Panama (3), Singapore (12), Switzerland
(6), Turks and Caicos (1)
45,200 7% 12,700 New York
Clorox 11 Bermuda (1), British Virgin Islands (1), Cayman Islands
(1), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (2), Luxembourg (2),
Panama (1), Switzerland (2)
216 9% 56 California
CMS Energy 1 Cayman Islands (1) Michigan
Coca-Cola 15 Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (3), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong
(1), Ireland (2), Luxembourg (2), Netherlands (1), Singapore (4)
31,900 Georgia
Coca-Cola Enterprises
4 Luxembourg (4) 1,800 Georgia
Cognizant Technology Solutions
16 Channel Islands (2), Costa Rica (1), Cyprus (2), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (1), Luxembourg (1),
Mauritius (2), Netherlands (3), Singapore (1), Switzerland (2)
7,495 New Jersey
Colgate-Palmolive 11 British Virgin Islands (1), Hong Kong (2), Ireland (1), Netherlands (2), Singapore
(3), Switzerland (2)
4,600 New York
Comcast 2 Cayman Islands (1), Netherlands (1)
Pennsylvania
31Appendix: Offshore Profits and Tax Haven Subsidiaries of Fortune 500 Companies
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
Commercial Metals 20 Bermuda (2), Cyprus (2), Hong Kong (1), Luxembourg (10),
Singapore (2), Switzerland (3)
463 Texas
Community Health Systems
1 Cayman Islands (1) Tennessee
Computer Sciences 34 Bahrain (1), British Virgin Islands (2), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (3), Ireland (7),
Luxembourg (5), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (5), Panama (1), Singapore (7), Switzerland (1)
3,000 Virginia
ConAgra Foods 1 Luxembourg (1) 540 Nebraska
ConocoPhillips 19 Bahamas (1), Bermuda (5), British Virgin Islands (1), Cayman Islands (6),
Liberia (1), Luxembourg (1), Netherlands (3), Singapore (1)
3,300 Texas
Constellation Brands
16 Barbados (1), Hong Kong (1), Luxembourg (11),
Netherlands (2), Singapore (1)
New York
Corning 12 Ireland (1), Luxembourg (6), Mauritius (1), Netherlands
(3), Singapore (1)
11,000 New York
Costco Wholesale 2,845 Washington
Crown Holdings 23 Barbados (1), British Virgin Islands (1), Hong Kong (3), Ireland (1), Jordan (1), Luxembourg (4),
Netherlands (6), Singapore (5), Switzerland (1)
838 Pennsylvania
CST Brands 740 Texas
Cummins 25 Barbados (1), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (3), Netherlands
(14), Panama (2), Singapore (4)
3,300 Indiana
D.R. Horton 1 Turks and Caicos (1) Texas
Dana Holding 18 Bermuda (1), British Virgin Islands (2), Cayman Islands (1), Gibraltar (1), Hong Kong (3), Ireland (1), Luxembourg
(6), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (1), Switzerland (1)
Ohio
Danaher 31 Cayman Islands (1), Hong Kong (4), Ireland (4), Luxembourg
(1), Netherlands (8), Singapore (5), Switzerland (8)
23,500 District of Columbia
DaVita 4 Netherlands (2), Singapore (2) Colorado
Dean Foods 1 Netherlands (1) 16 Texas
32 Offshore Shell Games 2016
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
Deere 5 Luxembourg (3), Singapore (1), Switzerland (1)
5,282 Illinois
Delta Air Lines 1 Bermuda (1) Georgia
Devon Energy 1,163 Oklahoma
Dick's Sporting Goods
4 Hong Kong (4) 32 1% 11 Pennsylvania
Dillard's 1 Bermuda (1) Arkansas
Discover Financial Services
2 Hong Kong (1), Singapore (1) Illinois
Discovery Communications
21 Barbados (1), Hong Kong (3), Ireland (3), Luxembourg (6),
Mauritius (1), Netherlands (3), Singapore (3), Switzerland (1)
495 Maryland
Dollar General 5 Hong Kong (5) Tennessee
Dollar Tree 1 Luxembourg (1) Virginia
Domtar 10 Hong Kong (2), Luxembourg (5), Netherlands (1), Switzerland (2)
South Carolina
Dover 30 Barbados (1), British Virgin Islands (1), Cayman Islands
(1), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (3), Ireland (1), Luxembourg
(5), Netherlands (9), Singapore (2), Switzerland (6)
1,100 Illinois
Dow Chemical 85 Bahrain (3), Bermuda (6), Costa Rica (2), Hong Kong (8), Ireland (2), Luxembourg (1), Mauritius (2), Netherlands (37), Panama
(1), Singapore (13), Switzerland (9), U.S. Virgin Islands (1)
18,773 Michigan
Dr Pepper Snapple Group
3 Netherlands (3) 371 Texas
Duke Energy 34 Bermuda (14), Cayman Islands (5), Gibraltar (3), Luxembourg
(6), Netherlands (6)
250 30% 12 North Carolina
DuPont 28 Bermuda (2), Hong Kong (3), Luxembourg (11),
Netherlands (7), Singapore (1), Switzerland (4)
16,053 Delaware
Eastman Chemical 42 Costa Rica (1), Gibraltar (1), Hong Kong (6), Luxembourg (9), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (12), Singapore (10), Switzerland (2)
1,900 Tennessee
eBay 4 Luxembourg (2), Netherlands (1), Switzerland (1)
6,000 California
33Appendix: Offshore Profits and Tax Haven Subsidiaries of Fortune 500 Companies
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
Ecolab 79 Antigua and Barbuda (1), Aruba (1), Bahamas (1), Barbados (1), Bermuda (1), Channel Islands (1), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (5), Ireland (4), Luxembourg (14), Macau (1), Malta (3),
Mauritius (1), Netherlands (32), Panama (1), Singapore (4),
St. Lucia (1), Switzerland (6)
1,800 Minnesota
Eli Lilly 33 Bermuda (2), British Virgin Islands (2), Cayman Islands (5),
Ireland (4), Netherlands (8), Singapore (2), Switzerland (10)
26,500 Indiana
EMC 4 Ireland (3), Netherlands (1) 11,800 Massachusetts
Emerson Electric 68 Bahrain (2), Bermuda (1), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong
(7), Ireland (4), Luxembourg (1), Mauritius (3), Netherlands (23), Panama (1), Singapore
(12), Switzerland (13)
6,400 Missouri
Energy Transfer Equity
7 Bermuda (5), Netherlands (1), Panama (1)
Texas
Envision Healthcare Holdings
6 Barbados (2), Cayman Islands (2), Mauritius (2)
Colorado
EOG Resources 16 Cayman Islands (6), Hong Kong (1), Netherlands (5),
St. Kitts and Nevis (4)
Texas
Essendant 1 Hong Kong (1) Illinois
Estée Lauder 2 Luxembourg (1), Switzerland (1) 3,548 New York
Exelon 3 Luxembourg (1), Marshall Islands (2)
Illinois
Expedia 34 Cayman Islands (6), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (5),
Ireland (3), Luxembourg (2), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (4), Singapore (8), Switzerland (4)
1,500 Washington
Expeditors International of Washington
10 Bahrain (1), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (1),
Jordan (1), Lebanon (1), Netherlands (1), Panama (1), Singapore (1), Switzerland (1)
Washington
Express Scripts 4 Ireland (1), Netherlands (2), Switzerland (1)
104 Missouri
Exxon Mobil 35 Bahamas (20), Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (1), Hong Kong (1), Luxembourg (2),
Netherlands (7), Singapore (3)
51,000 Texas
Facebook 3 Ireland (3) California
34 Offshore Shell Games 2016
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
FedEx 11 Luxembourg (2), Netherlands (9) 1,600 Tennessee
Fidelity National Information Services
44 Barbados (1), Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (2), Channel Islands (2), Hong Kong (5),
Ireland (3), Luxembourg (5), Mauritius (1), Netherlands
(12), Netherlands Antilles (1), Singapore (7), Switzerland (4)
674 Florida
Fifth Third Bancorp 4 Hong Kong (1), Mauritius (1), Turks and Caicos (2)
Ohio
First American 4 Mauritius (1), Netherlands (2), Panama (1)
156 California
First Data 33 Bermuda (1), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (2), Ireland (14), Luxembourg (5), Macau (1),
Mauritius (1), Netherlands (4), Panama (1), Singapore (3)
Georgia
Fluor 71 Barbados (2), Bermuda (7), British Virgin Islands (3),
Channel Islands (9), Cyprus (2), Ireland (3), Liechtenstein
(2), Mauritius (4), Netherlands (34), Panama (1), Singapore
(3), St. Lucia (1)
Texas
FMC Technologies 11 Luxembourg (4), Netherlands (4), Singapore
(1), Switzerland (2)
1,949 0% 717 Texas
Foot Locker 16 Ireland (4), Netherlands (10), Switzerland (2)
1,087 New York
Ford Motor 4 Mauritius (1), Netherlands (2), Switzerland (1)
5,500 20% 800 Michigan
Franklin Resources 32 Bahamas (2), Bermuda (1), British Virgin Islands (1),
Cayman Islands (12), Channel Islands (2), Hong Kong (4),
Ireland (1), Luxembourg (4), Mauritius (1), Singapore
(2), Switzerland (2)
7,900 California
Freeport-McMoRan 1,300 Arizona
GameStop 10 Ireland (4), Luxembourg (4), Netherlands (1), Switzerland (1)
601 Texas
Gap 7 Hong Kong (3), Ireland (1), Netherlands (2), Singapore (1)
642 22% 86 California
General Dynamics 11 Bermuda (1), Hong Kong (3), Singapore (2), Switzerland (5)
2,000 Virginia
General Electric 20 Bahamas (1), Bermuda (3), Ireland (2), Luxembourg (3),
Netherlands (7), Singapore (4)
104,000 Connecticut
35Appendix: Offshore Profits and Tax Haven Subsidiaries of Fortune 500 Companies
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
General Mills 52 Bermuda (9), Hong Kong (6), Ireland (1), Lebanon (2),
Luxembourg (5), Mauritius (2), Netherlands (13), Panama (1), Singapore (4), Switzerland (9)
2,000 Minnesota
General Motors 17 Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (2), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (1),
Netherlands (8), Singapore (1), Switzerland (3)
6,900 Michigan
Genuine Parts 3 Hong Kong (1), Netherlands (2) 623 Georgia
Genworth Financial 5 Bermuda (2), Cayman Islands (1), Hong Kong (1), Mauritius (1)
1,712 Virginia
Gilead Sciences 12 Hong Kong (1), Ireland (6), Luxembourg (1), Netherlands
(1), Panama (1), Singapore (1), Switzerland (1)
28,500 1% 9,700 California
Goldman Sachs Group
987 Bahamas (1), Barbados (4), Bermuda (19), British Virgin Islands (6), Cayman Islands (537), Channel Islands (17), Costa Rica (1), Cyprus (2),
Gibraltar (1), Hong Kong (19), Ireland (64), Isle of Man (3), Luxembourg (197), Mauritius (49), Monaco (1), Netherlands (45), Panama (1), Singapore
(18), Switzerland (2)
28,550 15% 5,660 New York
Goodyear Tire & Rubber
11 Bermuda (1), Ireland (2), Luxembourg (4),
Netherlands (2), Singapore (1), Switzerland (1)
1,400 Ohio
Google 1 Ireland (1) 58,300 California
Graybar Electric 72 Missouri
Group 1 Automotive
4 Cayman Islands (1), Netherlands (2), Turks and Caicos (1)
32 11% 8 Texas
Halliburton 14 Barbados (1), Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (3),
Netherlands (7), Singapore (1), Switzerland (1)
6,900 Texas
Hanesbrands 45 Bermuda (1), British Virgin Islands (1), Cayman Islands (16), Costa Rica (6), Hong
Kong (2), Ireland (1), Jordan (1), Luxembourg (8), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (2), Panama
(3), Switzerland (3)
2,699 6% 796 North Carolina
Harley-Davidson 4 Hong Kong (1), Netherlands (1), Singapore (1), Switzerland (1)
Wisconsin
36 Offshore Shell Games 2016
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
Harman International Industries
13 Hong Kong (1), Ireland (1), Lebanon (1), Luxembourg (2), Mauritius (2), Netherlands (2), Singapore (3), Switzerland (1)
1,600 Connecticut
Hartford Financial Services
7 Bermuda (6), Ireland (1) Connecticut
HCA Holdings 12 Bermuda (1), Luxembourg (7), Switzerland (3), U.S.
Virgin Islands (1)
Tennessee
HD Supply 2 Hong Kong (1), Panama (1) Georgia
Health Net 2 Cayman Islands (2) California
Henry Schein 1 Switzerland (1) 945 New York
Hershey 4 Hong Kong (1), Netherlands (1), Singapore (2)
239 Pennsylvania
Hertz Global Holdings
25 Bermuda (1), Hong Kong (2), Ireland (7), Luxembourg (1),
Monaco (1), Netherlands (11), Singapore (1), Switzerland (1)
717 Florida
Hess 12 Cayman Islands (10), Netherlands (2)
7,700 New York
Hewlett-Packard 95 Bahrain (2), Bermuda (6), British Virgin Islands (2),
Cayman Islands (7), Costa Rica (2), Hong Kong (4),
Ireland (9), Luxembourg (3), Netherlands (50), Panama (2), Singapore (5), Switzerland (3)
47,200 California
Hilton 26 Barbados (1), Cyprus (1), Gibraltar (1), Hong Kong (1), Isle of Man (1), Luxembourg (3), Maldives (2), Malta (1), Mauritius (1), Netherlands
(10), Panama (1), Singapore (2), Switzerland (1)
Virginia
Home Depot 3,500 Georgia
Honeywell International
4 Luxembourg (1), Switzerland (3) 16,600 New Jersey
Hormel Foods 2 Netherlands (2) 109 Minnesota
Host Hotels & Resorts
10 Cayman Islands (1), Netherlands (7), Singapore (1), U.S. Virgin Islands (1)
Maryland
HRG Group 27 Bermuda (1), British Virgin Islands (1), Cayman Islands (5), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (8), Ireland (1), Luxembourg (3), Netherlands (4), Panama (1), Singapore (1), Switzerland (1)
184 New York
37Appendix: Offshore Profits and Tax Haven Subsidiaries of Fortune 500 Companies
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
Huntington Ingalls Industries
1 Cayman Islands (1) Virginia
Huntsman 31 Cayman Islands (1), Hong Kong (8), Luxembourg (2),
Netherlands (12), Panama (1), Singapore (4), Switzerland (3)
354 Texas
Icahn Enterprises 28 Aruba (3), Bahrain (2), Bermuda (1), British Virgin Islands (1), Cayman Islands (1), Channel Islands (1), Cyprus (2), Hong
Kong (2), Isle of Man (1), Luxembourg (2), Malta (1),
Mauritius (1), Netherlands (7), Singapore (2), Switzerland (1)
962 New York
iHeartMedia 41 Bermuda (1), British Virgin Islands (2), Cayman Islands
(4), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (2), Ireland (4),
Netherlands (7), Netherlands Antilles (4), Panama (1),
Singapore (3), Switzerland (11), Turks and Caicos (1)
Texas
Illinois Tool Works 76 Bermuda (8), British Virgin Islands (4), Costa Rica (2), Hong Kong (9), Ireland (6),
Luxembourg (10), Malta (1), Mauritius (2), Netherlands
(21), Netherlands Antilles (2), Singapore (8), Switzerland (3)
8,700 Illinois
Ingram Micro 64 Barbados (1), Bermuda (1), British Virgin Islands (6),
Cayman Islands (4), Costa Rica (2), Hong Kong (5), Ireland
(1), Lebanon (1), Luxembourg (6), Mauritius (2), Netherlands (21), Panama (2), Singapore
(8), Switzerland (4)
2,200 California
Ingredion 9 Luxembourg (4), Mauritius (2), Netherlands (2), Singapore (1)
2,400 Illinois
Insight Enterprises 9 Hong Kong (1), Ireland (1), Netherlands (5), Singapore
(1), Switzerland (1)
89 Arizona
Intel 13 Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (5), Ireland (1),
Malta (1), Netherlands (5)
26,900 California
International Business Machines
16 Bahamas (1), Bahrain (1), Barbados (1), Bermuda (1), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong
(1), Ireland (2), Luxembourg (1), Malta (1), Mauritius (1),
Netherlands (2), Seychelles (1), Singapore (1), Switzerland (1)
68,100 New York
38 Offshore Shell Games 2016
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
International Paper 17 Bermuda (1), British Virgin Islands (1), Hong Kong (2), Luxembourg (5),
Netherlands (4), Singapore (3), Switzerland (1)
5,700 Tennessee
Interpublic Group 1 Netherlands (1) 2,592 New York
INTL FCStone 6 British Virgin Islands (1), Hong Kong (1), Netherlands
(2), Singapore (2)
227 New York
J.M. Smucker 3 Hong Kong (1), Netherlands (2) 217 Ohio
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
385 Bahamas (7), Barbados (1), Bermuda (19), British Virgin Islands (9), Cayman Islands (149), Channel Islands (18), Cyprus (1), Hong Kong (17),
Ireland (13), Luxembourg (61), Malta (13), Marshall Islands (3), Mauritius (33), Netherlands (12), Singapore (25), Switzerland (4)
34,600 11% 8,200 New York
Jabil Circuit 37 Bermuda (1), British Virgin Islands (7), Cayman Islands
(3), Channel Islands (1), Hong Kong (10), Ireland (2),
Luxembourg (3), Mauritius (2), Netherlands (3), Singapore (5)
2,800 Florida
Jacobs Engineering Group
34 Channel Islands (1), Cyprus (4), Hong Kong (5), Ireland (5), Liberia (1), Luxembourg (2), Macau (1), Netherlands (3), Panama (3), Singapore
(7), Switzerland (2)
26 16% 5 California
Jarden 28 Bahamas (2), Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (2), Costa Rica
(1), Hong Kong (10), Ireland (1), Luxembourg (3), Macau (1), Netherlands (3), Switzerland (4)
1,300 Florida
JetBlue Airways 1 Bermuda (1) New York
Johnson & Johnson 62 Hong Kong (1), Ireland (26), Luxembourg (4),
Netherlands (12), Singapore (1), Switzerland (18)
58,000 New Jersey
Johnson Controls 8,060 Wisconsin
39Appendix: Offshore Profits and Tax Haven Subsidiaries of Fortune 500 Companies
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
Jones Lang LaSalle 92 Bahamas (1), Bahrain (1), Barbados (1), British Virgin Islands (1), Cayman Islands
(9), Channel Islands (2), Costa Rica (1), Cyprus (1), Hong
Kong (21), Ireland (7), Lebanon (1), Luxembourg (15), Macau (1), Malta (1), Mauritius (3),
Netherlands (13), Panama (1), Singapore (9), Switzerland (3)
Illinois
Kellogg 34 Bermuda (3), Cayman Islands (1), Costa Rica (1), Cyprus (2),
Hong Kong (2), Ireland (8), Luxembourg (8), Malta (1),
Netherlands (2), Panama (1), Singapore (2), Switzerland (3)
2,000 Michigan
Kelly Services 13 Luxembourg (1), Netherlands (3), Singapore
(6), Switzerland (3)
120 Michigan
Kimberly-Clark 39 Bahrain (1), Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (5), Channel
Islands (2), Costa Rica (2), Cyprus (1), Hong Kong (2), Luxembourg (4), Malta (1),
Netherlands (10), Panama (2), Singapore (7), Switzerland (1)
8,800 Texas
Kinder Morgan 3 Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (1), Mauritius (1)
Texas
Kindred Healthcare 1 Cayman Islands (1) Kentucky
KKR 300 Cayman Islands (249), Channel Islands (6), Hong Kong (3),
Ireland (19), Luxembourg (9), Mauritius (5), Singapore (9)
New York
Kraft Heinz 33 British Virgin Islands (2), Cayman Islands (2), Costa Rica
(1), Cyprus (1), Gibraltar (2), Hong Kong (2), Ireland (3),
Luxembourg (2), Netherlands (14), Panama (2), Singapore (2)
3,600 Pennsylvania
L Brands 1 Hong Kong (1) 454 Ohio
L-3 Communications 4 Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (1), Singapore (1)
661 New York
Laboratory Corp. of America
5 Cayman Islands (1), Hong Kong (1), Luxembourg
(1), Singapore (2)
662 North Carolina
Lam Research 21 Barbados (2), Cayman Islands (3), Hong Kong (2),
Ireland (2), Luxembourg (1), Netherlands (4), Singapore
(3), Switzerland (4)
4,300 7% 1,200 California
40 Offshore Shell Games 2016
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
Las Vegas Sands 45 Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (22), Hong Kong (4), Macau (10), Mauritius (1),
Netherlands (5), Singapore (2)
5,240 Nevada
Lear 13 Cayman Islands (2), Hong Kong (1), Luxembourg (4), Mauritius (2), Netherlands
(3), Singapore (1)
1,700 Michigan
Lennar 1 Bermuda (1) Florida
Leucadia National 2 Hong Kong (2) 205 6% 59 New York
Level 3 Communications
26 Bermuda (3), Cayman Islands (2), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (3), Ireland (5), Luxembourg (3), Mauritius
(1), Netherlands (4), Panama (1), Singapore (1), Switzerland
(1), U.S. Virgin Islands (1)
Colorado
Liberty Interactive 8 Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (1), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (1), Luxembourg
(2), Netherlands (1)
Colorado
LifePoint Health 1 Cayman Islands (1) Tennessee
Lincoln National 1 Barbados (1) Pennsylvania
Live Nation Entertainment
39 Cayman Islands (2), Hong Kong (3), Ireland (10), Isle
of Man (3), Luxembourg (2), Netherlands (17), Singapore
(1), Switzerland (1)
1,200 California
LKQ 56 Ireland (2), Netherlands (54) 398 Illinois
Lockheed Martin 353 21% 48 Maryland
Loews 6 Bermuda (2), Cayman Islands (3), Channel Islands (1)
2,000 New York
Lowe's 153 North Carolina
Macy's 3 Hong Kong (3) Ohio
Manpower 68 British Virgin Islands (1), Cayman Islands (1), Costa Rica
(2), Cyprus (1), Hong Kong (9), Ireland (4), Luxembourg (4), Macau (1), Monaco (1),
Netherlands (33), Panama (2), Singapore (5), Switzerland (4)
517 Wisconsin
Marathon Oil 46 Bahamas (1), Barbados (1), Bermuda (2), Cayman Islands (28), Netherlands
(13), Switzerland (1)
Texas
41Appendix: Offshore Profits and Tax Haven Subsidiaries of Fortune 500 Companies
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
Marathon Petroleum
2 Bermuda (2) Ohio
Markel Corporation 10 Bermuda (6), Ireland (1), Netherlands (3)
650 Virginia
Marriott International
93 Anguilla (1), Aruba (1), Bahamas (2), Bahrain (1), Barbados (1),
Bermuda (6), British Virgin Islands (8), Cayman Islands
(10), Channel Islands (2), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (7), Ireland
(3), Jordan (3), Lebanon (1), Luxembourg (6), Maldives (1), Malta (1), Netherlands
(14), Netherlands Antilles (7), Panama (2), Singapore (3), St. Kitts and Nevis (2), St. Lucia
(1), Switzerland (7), Turks and Caicos (1), U.S. Virgin Islands (1)
1,109 Maryland
Marsh & McLennan 123 Bahamas (1), Bahrain (1), Barbados (5), Bermuda (20), Cayman Islands (2), Channel Islands (3), Cyprus (2), Hong
Kong (12), Ireland (17), Isle of Man (4), Jordan (1),
Liechtenstein (1), Luxembourg (13), Macau (1), Malta (2), Mauritius (1), Netherlands
(14), Panama (2), Singapore (12), Switzerland (9)
3,400 New York
Masco 11 Cyprus (1), Hong Kong (1), Luxembourg (3),
Netherlands (3), Singapore (2), Switzerland (1)
Michigan
MasterCard 3 Netherlands (1), Singapore (2) 3,500 New York
Mattel 9 Bermuda (2), Hong Kong (1), Netherlands (5), Singapore (1)
6,800 California
McDonald's 10 Hong Kong (1), Luxembourg (4), Netherlands (1), Singapore
(1), Switzerland (3)
14,900 Illinois
McKesson 1 Ireland (1) 5,831 California
Merck 125 Bermuda (11), Costa Rica (2), Cyprus (3), Hong Kong
(3), Ireland (25), Lebanon (1), Luxembourg (1), Netherlands (44), Panama (5), Singapore
(7), Switzerland (23)
59,200 New Jersey
MetLife 31 Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (9), Cyprus (3), Hong Kong (4), Ireland (9), Singapore
(3), Switzerland (2)
4,900 New York
42 Offshore Shell Games 2016
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
MGM Resorts International
10 Cayman Islands (3), Hong Kong (3), Isle of Man (2), Macau (1), Singapore (1)
Nevada
Micron Technology 3 Netherlands (2), Singapore (1) 8,520 Idaho
Microsoft 5 Ireland (3), Luxembourg (1), Singapore (1)
124,000 3% 39,300 Washington
Mohawk Industries 41 Barbados (1), Hong Kong (2), Ireland (4), Luxembourg (19), Netherlands (13), Singapore
(1), Switzerland (1)
1,680 Georgia
Mondelēz International
78 Bahamas (1), Bahrain (2), Costa Rica (3), Cyprus (1),
Hong Kong (2), Ireland (14), Lebanon (2), Mauritius (1),
Netherlands (28), Panama (1), Singapore (10), Switzerland (13)
19,200 Illinois
Monsanto 8 British Virgin Islands (1), Netherlands (6), Switzerland (1)
4,700 Missouri
Morgan Stanley 669 Bermuda (4), Cayman Islands (280), Channel Islands (33),
Cyprus (4), Gibraltar (1), Hong Kong (18), Ireland (45), Luxembourg (76),
Malta (1), Mauritius (16), Netherlands (131), Singapore
(58), Switzerland (2)
10,209 26% 893 New York
Mosaic 8 Luxembourg (3), Netherlands (5) 2,100 Minnesota
Motorola Solutions 1,400 Illinois
National Oilwell Varco
75 Bahrain (1), Barbados (1), Bermuda (1), British Virgin
Islands (2), Cayman Islands (7), Channel Islands (1), Cyprus (1), Mauritius (2), Netherlands (39), Singapore (19), Switzerland (1)
8,187 Texas
Navistar International
1 Cayman Islands (1) 565 Illinois
NCR 35 Bahrain (2), Bermuda (6), Cyprus (4), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (4),
Luxembourg (6), Macau (1), Netherlands (5), Panama (1), Singapore (3), Switzerland (2)
2,400 Georgia
NetApp 13 Bermuda (2), Cyprus (1), Hong Kong (2), Ireland (1), Luxembourg (1),
Netherlands (3), Singapore (2), Switzerland (1)
4,000 10% 1,000 California
Netflix 2 Netherlands (2) 65 0% 23 California
43Appendix: Offshore Profits and Tax Haven Subsidiaries of Fortune 500 Companies
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
Newell Rubbermaid 10 Cayman Islands (3), Hong Kong (1), Luxembourg (3),
Netherlands (2), Switzerland (1)
658 Georgia
Newmont Mining 16 Bermuda (3), British Virgin Islands (1), Channel Islands
(1), Cyprus (1), Liberia (1), Netherlands (9)
Colorado
News Corp. 31 Cayman Islands (2), Hong Kong (13), Ireland (1), Luxembourg
(4), Netherlands (3), Singapore (5), Switzerland (3)
2,700 New York
NextEra Energy 1 Cayman Islands (1) Florida
Nike 55 Bermuda (3), Hong Kong (8), Jordan (1), Netherlands (38), Panama (1), Singapore
(3), Switzerland (1)
10,700 1% 3,600 Oregon
Nordstrom 1 Hong Kong (1) Washington
Norfolk Southern 1 Bermuda (1) Virginia
Northrop Grumman 560 27% 45 Virginia
NRG Energy 18 Bermuda (1), British Virgin Islands (2), Cayman Islands
(1), Channel Islands (1), Hong Kong (1), Luxembourg (2),
Netherlands (8), Netherlands Antilles (1), Switzerland (1)
New Jersey
Nucor 170 North Carolina
Occidental Petroleum
109 Bermuda (62), Cayman Islands (9), Hong Kong
(1), Liberia (1), Malta (1), Netherlands (4), Panama (1), Singapore (2), St. Kitts and Nevis (26), Switzerland (2)
9,900 34% 115 Texas
Office Depot 26 Bermuda (2), Cayman Islands (1), Hong Kong (2), Ireland (3), Luxembourg (3), Netherlands
(13), Switzerland (2)
204 Florida
Old Republic International
5 Bermuda (4), Cayman Islands (1) Illinois
Omnicom Group 2 Hong Kong (1), Singapore (1) 2,100 New York
Oracle 5 Ireland (5) 42,600 4% 13,300 California
Oshkosh 12 Hong Kong (1), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (9), Singapore (1)
195 Wisconsin
Owens & Minor 12 Channel Islands (2), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (6), Netherlands
(2), Switzerland (1)
46 Virginia
44 Offshore Shell Games 2016
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
Owens Corning 17 Cayman Islands (2), Hong Kong (1), Netherlands
(12), Singapore (2)
1,600 0% 581 Ohio
Owens-Illinois 20 Bermuda (1), Hong Kong (5), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (11), Singapore (1), Switzerland (1)
2,500 Ohio
Paccar 6 Netherlands (6) 4,100 28% 300 Washington
Packaging Corp. of America
2 Hong Kong (2) 3 Illinois
Parker Hannifin 27 Bermuda (3), Gibraltar (2), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (1), Luxembourg (10),
Netherlands (6), Singapore (2), Switzerland (2)
3,200 Ohio
PayPal Holdings 5 Luxembourg (3), Singapore (2) 3,500 California
Peabody Energy 18 Bermuda (1), British Virgin Islands (1), Gibraltar (6),
Netherlands (6), Singapore (4)
Missouri
Penske Automotive Group
790 Michigan
PepsiCo 135 Barbados (1), Bermuda (15), Cayman Islands (6), Costa Rica (2), Cyprus (13), Gibraltar (2), Hong Kong (10), Ireland (9), Jordan (1), Liechtenstein (1),
Luxembourg (24), Mauritius (2), Netherlands (32), Netherlands
Antilles (8), Panama (1), Singapore (2), Switzerland (6)
40,200 New York
Pfizer 181 Bahamas (11), Cayman Islands (1), Channel Islands (3), Costa
Rica (3), Hong Kong (7), Ireland (29), Luxembourg (42), Netherlands (65), Panama (4), Singapore (10), Switzerland (6)
193,587 New York
Philip Morris International
7 Netherlands (2), Switzerland (5) 23,000 New York
Phillips 66 15 Bermuda (4), Cayman Islands (7), Ireland (1), Panama (1),
Singapore (1), Switzerland (1)
2,800 Texas
Phillips-Van Heusen 38 British Virgin Islands (3), Cyprus (1), Hong Kong (7),
Ireland (3), Luxembourg (1), Macau (1), Netherlands (18), Singapore (1), Switzerland (3)
2,100 New York
Plains GP Holdings 2 Luxembourg (2) Texas
45Appendix: Offshore Profits and Tax Haven Subsidiaries of Fortune 500 Companies
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
PNC Financial Services Group
92 Bermuda (10), Cayman Islands (39), Channel Islands (8), Cyprus (1), Hong Kong (5), Ireland (8), Isle of Man (3), Luxembourg
(8), Netherlands (5), Singapore (4), Switzerland (1)
110 4% 34 Pennsylvania
PPG Industries 21 Bermuda (1), Hong Kong (2), Ireland (1), Luxembourg (2), Netherlands (10), Singapore
(2), Switzerland (3)
4,200 26% 375 Pennsylvania
PPL 4,600 Pennsylvania
Praxair 21 Bahrain (2), Costa Rica (1), Ireland (3), Luxembourg (4), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (3), Panama (1), Singapore
(4), Switzerland (2)
11,000 Connecticut
Precision Castparts 14 Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (2), Hong Kong (4), Ireland (1), Luxembourg (3), Singapore (3)
1,546 Oregon
Priceline.com 5 Mauritius (1), Netherlands (3), Singapore (1)
9,900 Connecticut
Principal Financial 22 Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (3), Hong Kong
(10), Ireland (1), Malta (4), Mauritius (1), Singapore (2)
1,005 Iowa
Procter & Gamble 35 Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (1), Lebanon (1), Luxembourg (3), Netherlands (17), Panama (1), Singapore
(3), Switzerland (7)
49,000 Ohio
Prudential Financial 51 Barbados (1), Bermuda (4), British Virgin Islands (2),
Cayman Islands (20), Channel Islands (2), Hong Kong (2),
Ireland (1), Luxembourg (17), Singapore (2)
3,215 New Jersey
Qualcomm 3 Singapore (3) 28,800 0% 10,200 California
Quanta Services 7 British Virgin Islands (3), Costa Rica (1), Luxembourg (1),
Netherlands (1), Panama (1)
270 Texas
Quest Diagnostics 5 Ireland (1), Luxembourg (3), Singapore (1)
49 New Jersey
Quintiles 20 Costa Rica (2), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (2), Luxembourg
(5), Mauritius (2), Netherlands (3), Panama (1), Singapore
(2), Switzerland (2)
578 19% 95 North Carolina
46 Offshore Shell Games 2016
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
R.R. Donnelley & Sons
29 Barbados (1), British Virgin Islands (1), Cayman Islands (2), Channel Islands (1), Costa Rica (1), Cyprus (1), Hong Kong (3), Ireland (4), Luxembourg (1),
Mauritius (1), Netherlands (10), Singapore (2), St. Lucia (1)
1,600 Illinois
Ralph Lauren 5 Hong Kong (1), Netherlands (3), Switzerland (1)
2,615 New York
Raymond James Financial
4 British Virgin Islands (2), Mauritius (2)
185 Florida
Raytheon 688 Massachusetts
Realogy 6 Hong Kong (3), Netherlands (1), Singapore (1), Switzerland (1)
New Jersey
Reinsurance Group of America
10 Barbados (4), Bermuda (2), Ireland (1), Netherlands (2), Singapore (1)
993 Missouri
Reliance Steel & Aluminum
2 Singapore (2) 188 California
Republic Services 1 Cayman Islands (1) Arizona
Reynolds American 5 Cayman Islands (1), Hong Kong (1), Netherlands (3)
82 North Carolina
Rockwell Automation
5 Ireland (1), Netherlands (1), Singapore (2), Switzerland (1)
3,059 Wisconsin
Rockwell Collins 3 Luxembourg (3) 539 Iowa
Ryder System 13 Bermuda (1), British Virgin Islands (1), Hong Kong (1), Mauritius (1),
Netherlands (6), Singapore (3)
712 Florida
S&P Global 20 Hong Kong (4), Ireland (1), Luxembourg (4),
Netherlands (1), Singapore (9), Switzerland (1)
1,573 New York
salesforce.com 9 Hong Kong (1), Ireland (3), Luxembourg (1),
Netherlands (1), Singapore (2), Switzerland (1)
California
SanDisk 7 Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (1), Ireland (3), Netherlands (2)
1,260 California
Sanmina-SCI 15 British Virgin Islands (2), Cayman Islands (1), Hong Kong (4), Ireland (2), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (1), Singapore (4)
583 California
Seaboard 33 Bahamas (1), Bermuda (16), Cayman Islands (3), Costa Rica (1), Isle of Man (1), Liberia (2), Mauritius (6), Netherlands (1),
Panama (1), Singapore (1)
977 Kansas
47Appendix: Offshore Profits and Tax Haven Subsidiaries of Fortune 500 Companies
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
Sealed Air 46 Barbados (2), Cayman Islands (1), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (4), Ireland (3), Luxembourg
(5), Netherlands (21), Singapore (2), Switzerland (7)
5,100 North Carolina
Sears Holdings 2 Bermuda (1), Hong Kong (1) Illinois
Sempra Energy 3 Netherlands (3) 3,900 California
Sherwin-Williams 11 Aruba (1), Belize (1), Cayman Islands (1), Hong Kong (1),
Ireland (2), Luxembourg (3), Netherlands Antilles
(1), Singapore (1)
Ohio
Simon Property Group
3 Bermuda (1), Luxembourg (2) Indiana
Sonic Automotive 1 Cayman Islands (1) North Carolina
Southwest Airlines 1 Bermuda (1) Texas
Spectra Energy 2 Luxembourg (2) 1,500 Texas
Spirit AeroSystems Holdings
5 Netherlands (4), Singapore (1) 310 3% 100 Kansas
St. Jude Medical 21 Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (2), Lebanon
(1), Luxembourg (7), Netherlands (4), Singapore
(2), Switzerland (3)
5,100 Minnesota
Stanley Black & Decker
99 British Virgin Islands (4), Cayman Islands (7), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong (13),
Ireland (22), Liechtenstein (1), Luxembourg (16), Macau (1), Netherlands (14), Panama (4), Singapore (10), Switzerland (6)
4,391 Connecticut
Staples 30 Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (3), Cyprus (2),
Hong Kong (3), Ireland (2), Luxembourg (2), Netherlands
(15), Switzerland (2)
837 Massachusetts
Starbucks 18 Cayman Islands (1), Costa Rica (1), Cyprus (1), Hong Kong (6), Netherlands (5),
Singapore (2), Switzerland (2)
2,800 Washington
Starwood Hotels & Resorts
7 Luxembourg (6), Singapore (1) 3,600 Connecticut
State Farm Insurance Cos.
1 Bermuda (1) Illinois
48 Offshore Shell Games 2016
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
State Street Corp. 64 Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (9), Channel Islands (14), Hong Kong
(5), Ireland (15), Liechtenstein (1), Luxembourg (8), Mauritius
(2), Singapore (3), Switzerland (6)
4,900 13% 1,100 Massachusetts
Stryker 46 Barbados (1), British Virgin Islands (1), Cayman Islands (1), Hong
Kong (6), Ireland (7), Lebanon (1), Luxembourg (2), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (17), Panama (1), Singapore (1), Switzerland (7)
7,166 Michigan
SunTrust Banks 1 Cayman Islands (1) Georgia
Supervalu 3 Bermuda (3) Minnesota
Symantec 4 Ireland (3), Singapore (1) 3,800 6% 1,100 California
Synnex 18 Bermuda (2), British Virgin Islands (4), Costa Rica (2), Hong Kong (4), Ireland (2),
Netherlands (2), Singapore (2)
396 California
Sysco 37 Bahamas (3), Bermuda (3), Cayman Islands (4), Channel
Islands (1), Costa Rica (6), Hong Kong (4), Ireland (7), Luxembourg (6), Netherlands (2), Panama (1)
1,200 Texas
Target 685 Minnesota
Tech Data 10 Cayman Islands (2), Costa Rica (1), Ireland (1), Luxembourg (2), Netherlands (2), Switzerland (2)
642 Florida
Tenet Healthcare 3 Cayman Islands (2), U.S. Virgin Islands (1)
Texas
Tenneco 8 Hong Kong (1), Luxembourg (3), Mauritius (3), Netherlands (1)
731 14% 150 Illinois
Terex 19 Bermuda (1), British Virgin Islands (1), Cayman Islands
(2), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (2), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (8), Singapore (1), Switzerland (2)
855 Connecticut
Texas Instruments 12 Hong Kong (5), Ireland (1), Luxembourg (2), Netherlands
(2), Singapore (2)
8,350 Texas
Textron 8 Barbados (1), Netherlands (3), Singapore (3), Switzerland (1)
1,200 Rhode Island
Thermo Fisher Scientific
159 Barbados (3), Bermuda (4), British Virgin Islands (1),
Cayman Islands (12), Channel Islands (1), Costa Rica (1),
Gibraltar (2), Hong Kong (18), Ireland (8), Luxembourg (24), Malta (6), Netherlands (54),
Singapore (10), Switzerland (15)
8,640 Massachusetts
49Appendix: Offshore Profits and Tax Haven Subsidiaries of Fortune 500 Companies
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
Time Warner 7 Netherlands (5), Netherlands Antilles (1), Switzerland (1)
1,100 New York
TJX 5 Bermuda (2), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (1), Netherlands (1)
727 Massachusetts
Toys "R" Us 14 British Virgin Islands (7), Hong Kong (3), Netherlands (2),
Singapore (1), Switzerland (1)
1 New Jersey
Travelers Cos. 1 Bermuda (1) 383 New York
Trinity Industries 2 Switzerland (2) Texas
Twenty-First Century Fox
960 New York
Tyson Foods 12 Bermuda (2), British Virgin Islands (1), Cayman Islands (1), Hong Kong (3), Luxembourg (3), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (1)
139 Arkansas
U.S. Bancorp 11 Cayman Islands (1), Channel Islands (1), Hong Kong (1),
Ireland (5), Netherlands (2), Singapore (1)
Minnesota
UGI 4 Luxembourg (1), Netherlands (2), Switzerland (1)
51 Pennsylvania
United Natural Foods
16 Rhode Island
United Parcel Service
4 Hong Kong (2), Singapore (1), U.S. Virgin Islands (1)
4,954 Georgia
United Rentals 651 Connecticut
United Services Automobile Assn.
16 Luxembourg (14), Netherlands (2)
Texas
United States Steel 3 Isle of Man (1), Netherlands (2) Pennsylvania
United Technologies 31 Cayman Islands (1), Gibraltar (1), Hong Kong (4), Ireland
(2), Luxembourg (9), Netherlands (8), Singapore
(2), Switzerland (4)
29,000 Connecticut
UnitedHealth Group 19 Bermuda (1), Cayman Islands (3), Hong Kong (1),
Ireland (1), Luxembourg (8), Netherlands (4), Singapore (1)
459 Minnesota
Univar 13 Hong Kong (1), Ireland (3), Netherlands (6), Singapore
(2), Switzerland (1)
583 Illinois
Universal Health Services
53 20% 8 Pennsylvania
Unum Group 4 Channel Islands (3), Ireland (1) 1,000 15% 200 Tennessee
50 Offshore Shell Games 2016
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
Valero Energy 15 Aruba (5), British Virgin Islands (3), Cayman Islands (2), Ireland (2), Luxembourg
(1), Netherlands (2)
3,200 Texas
Veritiv 4 Luxembourg (2), Netherlands (1), Singapore (1)
31 2% 10 Georgia
Verizon Communications
1,800 New York
VF 25 Cayman Islands (1), Gibraltar (2), Hong Kong (3), Luxembourg (12), Mauritius
(1), Netherlands (1), Singapore (1), Switzerland (4)
3,657 North Carolina
Viacom 42 Bahamas (1), Cayman Islands (6), Channel Islands (1),
Hong Kong (2), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (27), Singapore
(3), Switzerland (1)
1,800 23% 225 New York
Visa 1 Singapore (1) 6,400 California
Visteon 10 Bermuda (2), British Virgin Islands (1), Hong Kong
(4), Netherlands (3)
Michigan
Voya Financial 7 Bermuda (2), Cayman Islands (1), Hong Kong (2), Ireland
(1), Luxembourg (1)
New York
W.R. Berkley 2 Bermuda (1), Liechtenstein (1) 79 23% 10 Connecticut
W.W. Grainger 21 Costa Rica (1), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (16),
Panama (2), Singapore (1)
468 Illinois
Walgreens 71 Bermuda (1), British Virgin Islands (1), Cayman Islands
(9), Cyprus (2), Hong Kong (5), Ireland (5), Luxembourg (23), Monaco (1), Netherlands (15),
Singapore (1), Switzerland (7), U.S. Virgin Islands (1)
Illinois
Walmart 26,100 Arkansas
Walt Disney 4 Hong Kong (1), Luxembourg (1), Netherlands (2)
2,700 15% 547 California
Waste Management 2 Hong Kong (2) 825 Texas
WellCare Health Plans
1 Cayman Islands (1) Florida
Wells Fargo 52 Aruba (1), Barbados (1), Bermuda (3), Cayman Islands
(11), Hong Kong (4), Ireland (3), Luxembourg (18), Mauritius (6), Netherlands (4), Singapore (1)
2,000 7% 557 California
51Appendix: Offshore Profits and Tax Haven Subsidiaries of Fortune 500 Companies
Company Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Location of Tax Haven Subsidiaries
Amount Held Offshore
($ millions)
Tax Rate Paid on
Offshore Cash
Estimated U.S. Tax Bill on Offshore Cash
State Headquarters
WESCO International
11 Hong Kong (1), Netherlands (8), Singapore (2)
624 Pennsylvania
Western Digital 49 Bermuda (3), Cayman Islands (13), Hong Kong (4), Ireland (8),
Luxembourg (1), Netherlands (12), Singapore (7), Switzerland (1)
12,000 2% 4,000 California
Western Union 45 Barbados (1), Bermuda (14), Costa Rica (1), Hong Kong
(2), Ireland (13), Luxembourg (4), Malta (3), Panama (2),
Singapore (4), Switzerland (1)
6,100 Colorado
WestRock 3 Luxembourg (2), Netherlands (1) 198 Virginia
Weyerhaeuser 5 Barbados (2), British Virgin Islands (1), Hong Kong (2)
34 Washington
Whirlpool 36 Bermuda (3), British Virgin Islands (1), Hong Kong (4),
Ireland (3), Luxembourg (12), Mauritius (1), Netherlands (6), Singapore (2), Switzerland (4)
4,200 Michigan
Williams 11 Cayman Islands (6), Netherlands (5) Oklahoma
World Fuel Services 37 Bahamas (1), British Virgin Islands (2), Cayman Islands (4), Costa Rica (6), Gibraltar
(2), Hong Kong (1), Ireland (2), Luxembourg (2), Netherlands (11), Panama (2), Singapore
(3), Switzerland (1)
1,500 Florida
Wyndham Worldwide
4 Luxembourg (3), Netherlands (1) 809 New Jersey
Xerox 49 Barbados (4), Bermuda (9), Channel Islands (1), Hong Kong (3), Ireland (5), Luxembourg (3), Malta (1), Netherlands (15), Singapore
(2), St. Lucia (1), Switzerland (4), Turks and Caicos (1)
9,000 Connecticut
XPO Logistics 5 Hong Kong (2), Netherlands (1), Singapore (2)
49 Connecticut
Yum Brands 75 Bahrain (1), British Virgin Islands (2), Cayman Islands (2), Cyprus (1), Hong Kong
(10), Luxembourg (35), Macau (1), Malta (6), Netherlands
(10), Singapore (7)
2,300 Kentucky
Zimmer Biomet Holdings
102 Bermuda (2), Cayman Islands (4), Channel Islands (2), Costa
Rica (2), Gibraltar (4), Hong Kong (20), Ireland (6), Luxembourg
(14), Netherlands (28), Singapore (2), Switzerland (18)
3,853 Indiana
52 Offshore Shell Games 2016
Endnotes
1 Matt Gardner, “EU Ruling on Apple’s Egregious Tax Avoidance Is Welcome News, But $14.5 Billion Is Only a Fraction of the Story,” Tax Justice Blog, August 30, 2016. http://www.taxjusticeblog.org/archive/2016/08/eu_ruling_on_apples_egregious.php
2 Government Accountability Office, Business and Tax Advantages Attract U.S. Persons and Enforcement Challenges Exist, GAO-08-778, a report to the Chairman and Ranking Member, Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate, July 2008, http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d08778high.pdf.
3 Id.
4 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, “Harmful Tax Competition: An Emerging Global Issue,” 1998. http://www.oecd.org/tax/transparency/44430243.pdf
5 Government Accountability Office, International Taxation; Large U.S. Corporations and Federal Contractors with Subsidiaries in Jurisdictions Listed as Tax Havens or Financial Privacy Jurisdictions, December 2008.
6 Mark P. Keightley, Congressional Research Service, An Analysis of Where American Companies Report Profits: Indications of Profit Shifting, 18 January, 2013.
7 Citizens for Tax Justice, American Corporations Tell IRS the Majority of Their Offshore Profits Are in 10 Tax Havens, 7 April 2016.
8 Kitty Richards and John Craig, Offshore Corporate Profits: The Only Thing ‘Trapped’ Is Tax Revenue, Center for American Progress, 9 January, 2014, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/tax-reform/report/2014/01/09/81681/offshore-corporate-profits-the-only-thing-trapped-is-tax-revenue/.
9 Offshore Funds Located On Shore, Majority Staff Report Addendum, Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, 14 December 2011, http://www.levin.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/new-data-show-corporate-offshore-funds-not-trapped-abroad-nearly-half-of-so-called-offshore-funds-already-in-the-united-states/.
10 Kate Linebaugh, “Firms Keep Stockpiles of ‘Foreign’ Cash in U.S.,” Wall Street Journal, 22 January 2013, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323284104578255663224471212.html.
11 Kimberly A. Clausing, “Profit shifting and U.S. corporate tax policy reform,” Washington Center for Equitable Growth, May 2016. http://equitablegrowth.org/report/profit-shifting-and-u-s-corporate-tax-policy-reform/
12 “China to Become World’s Second Largest Consumer Market”, Proactive Investors United Kingdom, 19 January, 2011 (Discussing a report released by Boston Consulting Group), http://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/columns/china-weekly-bulletin/4321/china-to-become-worlds-second-largest-consumer-market-4321.html.
53Endnotes
13 The number of subsidiaries registered in tax havens is calculated by authors looking at exhibit 21 of the company’s 2015 10-K reports filed annually with the Securities and Exchange Commission. For a selection of 27 companies we used subsidiaries disclosed to the Federal Reserve. The list of tax havens comes from the Government Accountability Office report cited in note 5.
14 ProPublica, “Bailout Recipients,” updated September 14, 2016. https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list
15 Calculated by the authors based on revenue information from Pfizer’s 2014 10-K filing.
16 Robert McIntyre, “Obama Wins One Against Corporate Tax Dodging,” U.S. News and World Report. April 7, 2016. http://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/articles/2016-04-07/pfizer-inversion-stopped-because-obama-is-serious-on-corporate-tax-dodging
17 Goldman Sachs, “Office Locations.” Accessed 9/28/16. http://www.goldmansachs.com/who-we-are/locations/
18 Audit Analytics, “Indefinitely Reinvested Foreign Earnings Still on the Rise,” July 2016. http://www.auditanalytics.com/blog/indefinitely-reinvested-foreign-earnings-still-on-the-rise/.
19 Citizens for Tax Justice, “Apple is not Alone” 2 June 2013, http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2013/06/apple_is_not_alone.php#.UeXKWm3FmH8.
20 See methodology for an explanation of how this was calculated.
21 Companies get a credit for taxes paid to foreign governments when they repatriate foreign earnings. Therefore, if companies disclose what their hypothetical tax bill would be if they repatriated “permanently reinvested” earnings, it is possible to deduce what they are currently paying to foreign governments. For example, if a company discloses that they would need to pay the full statutory 35% tax rate on its offshore cash, it implies that they are currently paying no taxes to foreign governments, which would entitle them to a tax credit that would reduce the 35% rate. This method of calculating foreign tax rates was originally used by Citizens for Tax Justice (see note 19).
22 Citizens for Tax Justice, “Nike’s Tax Haven Subsidiaries Are Named After Its Shoe Brands,” 25 July 2013, http://www.ctj.org/taxjusticedigest/archive/2013/07/nikes_tax_haven_subsidiaries_a.php#.U3y0Gijze2J.
23 Nike, “Nike Stores.” Accessed 9/28/2016. http://www.ascooper.bm/, http://www.nike.com/us/en_us/sl/find-a-store/; A.S. Cooper Bermuda, “Home Page,” Accessed 9/28/2016. http://www.ascooper.bm/
24 Zachary R. Mider, “Tax Break ‘Blarney’: U.S. Companies Beat the System with Irish Addresses,” Bloomberg News, 5 May 2014, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-04/u-s-firms-with-irish-addresses-criticized-for-the-moves.html.
25 Citizens for Tax Justice, “The Problem of Corporate Inversions: the Right and Wrong Approaches for Congress,” 14 May 2014, http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2014/05/the_problem_of_corporate_inversions_the_right_and_wrong_approaches_for_congress.php#.U3tavSjze2J.
26 Richard Phillips, “Why Treasury’s New Anti-Inversion Rules Are Critical,” Tax Justice Blog, July 7, 2016. http://www.taxjusticeblog.org/archive/2016/07/why_treasurys_new_anti-inversi.php
54 Offshore Shell Games 2016
27 Securities and Exchange Commission, “Business and Financial Disclosure Required by Regulation S-K,” Release No. 33-10064; 34-77599; File No. S7-06-16. https://www.sec.gov/rules/concept/2016/33-10064.pdf
28 Jeffrey Gramlich and Janie Whiteaker-Poe, “Disappearing subsidiaries: The Cases of Google and Oracle,” March 2013, Working Paper available at SSRN, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2229576.
29 Americans for Tax Fairness, “The Walmart Web,” 17 June 2015. http://www.americansfortaxfairness.org/files/TheWalmartWeb-June-2015-FINAL.pdf
30 See note 28.
31 Jesse Drucker, “Google Joins Apple Avoiding Taxes with Stateless Income,” Bloomberg News, 22 May 2013, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-22/google-joins-apple-avoiding-taxes-with-stateless-income.html.
32 Updated numbers based on methodology of this report: Citizens for Tax Justice, “Lax SEC Reporting Requirements Allow Companies to Omit Over 85 Percent of Their Tax Haven Subsidiaries,” June 30, 2016. http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2016/06/lax_sec_reporting_requirements_allow_companies_to_omit_over_85_percent_of_their_tax_haven_subsidiari.php
33 Economic Policy Institute, “Corporate Chart Book,” September 19, 2016. http://www.epi.org/publication/corporate-tax-chartbook-how-corporations-rig-the-rules-to-dodge-the-taxes-they-owe/
34 FACT Coalition, “A Taxing Problem for Investors,” September 12, 2016. https://thefactcoalition.org/taxing-problem-investors-shareholders-increasingly-risk-lack-disclosure-corporate-tax-practices/
35 OECD, “BEPS 2015 Final Reports,” October 5, 2015. http://www.oecd.org/tax/beps-2015-final-reports.htm
36 Citizens for Tax Justice, “Proposals to Resolve the Crisis of Corporate Inversions,” August 21, 014. http://ctj.org/pdf/inversionsproblemsandsolutions.pdf
37 Citizens for Tax Justice, “Proposals to Resolve the Crisis of Corporate Inversions,” August 21, 2014. http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2014/08/proposals_to_resolve_the_crisis_of_corporate_inversions.php
38 Joint Committee on Taxation, “Estimated Budget Effects of the Revenue Provisions Contained in the President’s Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Proposal,” April 15, 2014, https://www.jct.gov/publications.html?func=startdown&id=4585.
39 Listed as “Deduction for dividends received by domestic corporations from certain foreign corporations.” Joint Committee on Taxation, “Estimated Revenue Effects of the “Tax Reform Act of 2014,” February 26, 2014, https://www.jct.gov/publications.html?func=startdown&id=4562. JCT estimated that the cost of a territorial system would be $212 billion over a decade if the U.S. corporate tax rate were reduced to 25%. That translates to a cost of $297 billion under the current 35% tax rate.
40 Citizens for Tax Justice, “A Patent Box Would Be a Huge Step Back for Corporate Tax Reform,” June, 4, 2015. http://ctj.org/pdf/patentboxstepback.pdf
41 Citizens for Tax Justice, “Corporation Integration: A Solution in Search of a Problem,” May 16, 2016. http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2016/05/corporation_integration_a_solution_in_search_of_a_problem.php